Compagnie Pal Frenak
The Hidden Men
Les Hommes Cachés
FIUK
Choreography and concept:
Pál Frenák
Creation 2004
Re-creation: 2013
Photo © KNI
Three ropes to the sky, 4 men. Beyond being a beautiful work about the masculine
body – why is it almost never shown the way female body is? – and the use of space and
falls as tools of a choreographic expression, the piece is an immersion in the
unconsciousness of boys and men.
The Hidden Men holds a special mirror in front of us, in which we can see the „Macho”,
the „Narcissus” and also „Hercules”, and we can closely examine the archetypes of man.
Frenák alternately calls up male chauvinist violence, stupid pretentiousness, the balance of
power that structures our exchanges with others.
Frenák offers us a radical vision; he probes male sexuality through its different aspects: its
origins, as well as its unconscious sources. Its sensuality is without compromise, its
rudeness is poetic. The symbols used prompt us to make associations, as the scenery and
the source of the movement language is a rope-system on stage and its inspiring
verticality.
“The trio of ropes hanging down into the playing area opens up a vertical dimension: they
free us from our earth-bound existence and show the way to an unattainable reality. The
men are doing their best to get to the top; they drag themselves upwards, they lounge and
soar once they think they are high enough; it is all about the timeless human dream.”
(Márta Péter, dance theorist, critic)
The Hidden Men was awarded to the Rudolf Laban award dedicated to the best
contemporary dance pieces in Hungary and toured all over the world.
The Hidden Men
Duration: 50 min
VIDEOS, FILMS
The Hidden Men (3 min HD promotional video)
https://vimeo.com/71928132
The Hidden Men (full-length show in HD quality)
https://vimeo.com/71950990
Password: frenak2013
Choreography and concept: Pál FRENÁK
Dancers:
FEICHT Zoltán, HOLODA Péter, Nelson REGUERA, Leonardo MAIETTO
Music: Fabrice PLANQUETTE, GERGELY Attila
Lighting: MARTON János
Sound: HAJAS Attila
Costume: SZABÓ Gergely
Stage and alpine technique: ZOLTAI György
With the support of:
Ministére de Culture et Communication, Région Nord-Pas de Calais, Trafo House
of Contemporary Arts, National Cultural Fund
THE COMPANY
The award-winning choreographer-dancer Pál Frenák founded his French company in
1989 in Paris and established his Hungarian-French ensemble in 1999, based in
Budapest and Paris at the same time. Comprising a variety of classical and modern
techniques the company’s profile stands for a unique style and dance language. One of
its most important characteristics is the use of mimics, sign language and body
movements that reflect on various genres of contemporary circus, fashion, theatre and
music.
The company always combines the powerful choreographical structure with a pure but
special, and extraordinary scenery and set design – inspired by contemporary
architecture and design – which has a strong influence on the movement material. The
talented dancers’ – among others from France, Cuba and Hungary – deep knowledge
about the body and dance makes them the true presenters of the fundamental
questions and motifs of life such as power, desire, subjection, possession,
representation and the human ego.
PAL FRENAK
Pál Frenák was born in Budapest in 1957. His childhood was marked by the fact that
his parents were severely hearing and speech impaired, making sign language his first
means of expression. This rendered him especially receptive towards mimicry and
gestures and all other ways of expressing content with the help of the human body.
In the quest for his vocation, he left Hungary for Paris in the middle of the 1980′s. He
soon started working with many well-known artists from the world of classical ballet
and studied Cunningham and Limon dance techniques. Thanks to his French wife’s
network, architect Catherine Frenák, he gained entry into the world of contemporary
artists whose influence helped him master the use of uncommon shapes and spaces.
His works are deeply influenced by the movies of Italian film director Pier Paolo
Pasolini, the ideas of Francis Bacon and Gilles Deleuze and – as he was awarded to the
Choreographer’s Prize of Villa Kujoyama, Kyoto - the Japanese tradition of butoh,
which he combines with thought-provoking mixture of the Western-European and the
Middle-Eastern-European world.
In 1998, he transformed the ten-year-old Compagnie Pal Frenak into a HungarianFrench international cooperation by working together with young Hungarian dancers.
The ensemble, now performing both in Paris, in Budapest, and all over the world, and
is widely known for its unique style of dance that integrates mimicry, sign language
and body language, combined with carefully chosen elements of circus, theater,
fashion and contemporary music.
Not only does Pál Frenák have a wide repertoire as a choreographer, he also has a busy
schedule as an instructor. He regularly organizes professional workshops, gives
initiation shows to high-school students and he frequently meets his public, always
putting great emphasis on the dialog with other art forms and the continuous,
adequate cooperation with the public. He works together with some of the most
renowned people in contemporary European music such as György Kurtág, Patrick
Schneider, Fred Bigot or Fabrice Planquette.
Dóra JUHÁSZ
artistic manager
COMPAGNIE PAL FRENAK
mobil: 00-36-30-291-4832
email: [email protected]
web: http://ciefrenak.fr/