Roulette Presents: "Portrait of the Man as an Animal" Hosted by Brooke Gladstone

Brooklyn NY: Roulette presents “Portrait of the Man as an Animal” this event is part of “Walls and Bridges,” a 10-day French-American arts and ideas festival curated by the Villa Gillet, a French cultural institute interested in thought in all its expressions, bringing together thinkers and artists from all over the world; and is co-presented with Les Subsistances, an international laboratory for live arts based in Lyon, France. This free event, hosted by Brooke Gladstone,  co-host and managing editor of “On the Media”  on WNYC, will feature a variety of performers including: Cyril Casmeze (France / actor and zoomorph),  Jade Duviquet (actress and theater director), Rinde Eckert  (USA / vocalist, playwriter and theater director), Pascal Picq (France / paleoanthropologist), Ned Rothenberg   (USA / musician and composer), Ian Tattersall (USA / paleoanthropologist and a curator at the American Museum of Natural History )

About “A Portrait of the Man As an Animal”
Are, we, humans, so special? Four artists and two scientists  will probe the very nature of humanity, presenting, discussing  and embodying the wild instincts and behaviors that reside  in us.

Zoomorphic Wild Man
Since his childhood, Cyril Casmeze has been obsessed with  the idea of perfectly imitating many animals, and perhaps  even becoming an animal. Jade Duviquet interviews Casmeze,  using questions posed by the performer’s relatives. How  does his animality effect his relationships with humans?  And with animals? Cyril Casmeze responds with words,  movements, cries and transformations.

Five Beasts
Five Beasts is a set of five portraits as seen through the eyes and  heard through the utterances of an animal. Noises become an  elemental language without words. The guises are various, com- bining characteristics of predator, prey, ruminant, and scavenger.  Each portrait, then, is a kind of totem: man as wolf, mouse, ox,  vulture, dog. These animals put our pretensions in relief and chal- lenge our grand anthropocentrism.  We are absurd and amazed  and sometimes beautiful in our utter ignorance.