Calixto Neto returns to Moving in November with his latest solo IL FAUX. By taking Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me as a source and starting point, in which Coates writes a letter to his 15-year-old son to warn him of the dangers the world holds for his black body growing up in North America, this everyday reality and threat guided Neto in the creation of the performance.
Which bodies are perpetually on the verge of being lost? IL FAUX delves into the transmission of fear and the conditioning of the body in the language of survival and examinates the potential subversion of the societal roles assigned to Black bodies. The performance navigates through dissociative practices such as manipulation, dispossession and fragmentation, and it uses ventriloquism as an element in the dichotomy between the domination of a body and the exposure of its emptiness.
IL FAUX focuses on imagery, transforming and distorting social representations that define Black bodies. These repeated images, similar to gifs or memes, form an imaginary prison of social roles. By manipulating these visuals, the performance offers a subversive commentary on this confinement.
“Dance for a dispossessed body.
Illusion-confusion feat. power-resistance.
Dispossession meets fiction meets state violence.
meets meat.
meets flesh.
Creation as manipulation.
Smile like you like it, say hello to the guests.
Applause! A round of applause!
Everything you see is real”
– Calixto Neto
Calixto Neto, originally from Recife, Brazil, has lived in France since 2013. He studied theatre at the Federal University of Pernambuco and dance with Grupo Experimental de Dança, later earning a Master’s degree in choreography at CCN de Montpellier. A former member of Lia Rodrigues’ company, Neto has performed in pieces by Ève Magot, Anne Collod, Mette Ingvartsen and Luiz de Abreu, reviving Abreu’s O Samba do Crioulo Doido in 2020. He founded his company VOA with Julie Le Gall in 2021. Calixto is currently associate artist at Points Communs – Nouvelle Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise.
Calixto Neto’s performance Feijoada was part of the Moving in November’s program in 2022 and O Samba do Crioulo Doido by Luiz de Abreau opened the festival in 2020.