Marie Losier
La Nuit Obscure de Marlene Monteiro Freitas - Film - 1h - 2026
présenté dans le cadre de l'exposition Panorama 28 - Invisibles ?
Film
There is something mysterious about Marlene Monteiro Freitas. Long recognised as one of the leading figures on the new choreographic scene, in recent years she has built up a body of work that has continued to go from strength to strength. I discovered her somewhat by chance at the Festival d’Automne in 2020, and I haven’t missed a single one of her pieces since. Her creations remain enigmatic, despite their flamboyance; already cult classics, they are still almost unknown to the general public.
A rising star of contemporary dance, in just a few years this Cape Verdean artist has become the face and embodiment of an unexpected revival of choreographic expression and political engagement. Paradoxically, what might have seemed “niche” in her work has turned out to be expansive, welcoming, warm, funny and powerful, and her performances resonate with audiences all over the world.
And yet, everything about her pieces is mysterious; everything seems almost miraculous, the result of a creative journey so singular that it is bound to raise questions: how did she arrive at this extraordinary gesture, this hilarious repetition? How does she achieve this blending of genres that subverts our gaze? What kind of relationship with her dancers does she have that allows for such a complete departure from convention, logic and plausibility?
From Cape Verde to Lisbon, from femininity to military moves, from the baroque clown to the figures of colonial racism, from the political to the burlesque, from athletic to animal, she allows herself the freedom to let things well up within her, as they come and all at once. Her choreographies consistently express a muted, sometimes absurd violence—the violence that comes with being a woman, being Black, in a standardised and alienating society; their humour, though childlike and unrestrained, becomes coloured with the world’s anxieties and torments. She freely blends the grotesque with gravity, ritual with uncontrollable laughter, like a flow of lava.
It was during rehearsals for her new show, NÔT, that I decided to follow her.
To watch her being free.
Marie Losier is a filmmaker and visual artist. She studied literature at the University of Paris 10 (DEA in American literature and poetry) and fine arts at Hunter College in New York, where she lived and worked for over twenty years. As a director, she has made many film portraits of artists, filmmakers and musicians that are avant-garde, intimate, poetic and playful. Her films have been screened at numerous festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlin, IDFA, Tribeca/NYC, CPH:DOX, Bafici, Cinéma du réel, etc.) and have also been shown in museum spaces, notably Tate Modern (London), MoMA (NYC), the Centre Pompidou (Paris) and the Whitney Museum (NYC). In 2025, her latest feature, *Peaches Goes Bananas*, was selected for the Venice Film Festival. Also that year, she directed a medium-length film, *Barking in the Dark*, about THE RESIDENTS, a collective of artists and musicians from San Francisco. At Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains, she is directing a portrait of the choreographer and dancer Marlene Monteiro Freitas, who opened the 2025 Avignon Festival with her piece *NÔT*.
