Le Radeau

I go into the Matrix to mourn my inherited dreams. They were a technology of control over my body. This wake is a dance.

No self-image. I lean into forwardness, revel in aloneness.

Shameless, I entrust this dance to my flesh, on its own terms.

And so I trash success. No winning, no losing. No control. We enter the hole.

Created through radical trust in the body, faith hole choreographs itself through the unconsidered movements that rip through the artist. Going relentlessly forward, always embracing its future iteration, dismissing nostalgic lingerings of “self”, yet exposing the splinters of personhood to the public. In this solo work, Nate Yaffe cultivates a non-transactional exchange between performer and audience, offering himself as an open orifice spilling fleshy histories with unguarded emotion and humour. By excavating muscle memories as artifacts from a history of conditioning through classical dance training, internalized hetero-masculine values, and restrained hyperactivity, Nate Yaffe strives to reveal the innately queer vocabulary that lives beneath.

Credits

• Choreography, performance Nate Yaffe
• Dramaturge Thea Patterson
• Artistic advisor Georges-Nicolas Tremblay
• Lighting design, technical director Karine Gauthier
• Costume design Lari Jalbert & Nate Yaffe
• Music La Tène
• Residencies MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), Studio 303, Alliance House, Studio Par B.L.eux, CCOV, Mile Zero Dance Society, Usine C (Projets du 3^e)
• Production Le Radeau

Presentations

• 2022, Festival OFFTA, Usine C, Montréal, QC
• 2022, Performance Mix Festival. New York, NY
• 2019, MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), Montréal, QC

Financial support

• Canada Council for the Arts