Ganas de Vivir

This work explores fundamental cultural differences between North America and Mexico, particularly as they pertain to language and our relationship with death. In Mexico, death is treated with all-too human familiarity – almost as though it were another person. More than just accept it, Mexicans will mock and jeer their mortality, whereas most North Americans would conceive of a fundamental break – a hermetic border – between life and death. Élodie Lomardo takes us to that shifting border area; through choreography and an exploration of divergent cultural views, she attempts, with Ganas de Vivir, to abolish artistic borders. In this show, dance, theatre and live music converge and the tenuous relationship between humour and drama is played out amid a kind of festive atmosphere fraught, for the spectator, with emotional ambivalence. Dancers and musicians form a tight-knit whole to create a highly visual and profoundly human work in which both languages blend seamlessly.