sponge babe in l.a. (4 love & anxiety)
mercedes dassy
06 Feb 26 18:30
07 Feb 26 22:00
Spongebabe in L.A. (4 love & anxiety) is a self-portrait that mixes fiction and reality in the chimerical form of a concert, a dance performance, and a behind-the-scenes. During the rehearsals for a concert, alternating between songs, intimate and/or political addresses to the audience and choreographic interludes, a singer leads the fiction, tackling the theme of mutation, those moments in life when we have no other choice but to metamorphose.
I have the impression that in the last few years I have metamorphosed from a big motorbike into an empty shell, a two-hour-old mouse lying on the pavement, a membrane of a living creative you don’t want to mess with, a knight in crystal armour, a heart stapled all over the place, a fresh wind, a computer doing 43 updates simultaneously, a booty sacrificed to the dark forces of the universe, an overly sensitive imbecile, an independent woman who needs no one, and moreover, who has never needed anyone, a friend dependent on her friends, an ex-future mistress of a naked dog from Peru, a Saint Mary full of grace and pity, a devoted lover, a future ex-devoted lover, an ex-lover who was not devoted and then devoted – pause.
If a living entity can transform like that into all that, sometimes undergoing two or three metamorphoses simultaneously, it’s bound to end up triggering meta-physical process errors and involuntary hackings into the energetic and spiritual datasets of the established order, right?
Concept, choreography, performance, lyrics: Mercedes Dassy
Dramaturgy: Hanna El Fakir
Music production and sound design: Maxime Pichon
Set design, costumes, props: Flavie Torsiello
Assisted by Emma Paris, Marie-Céline Debande, Lyv Santerre
Lighting design: Vera Martíns
Stage manager: Charlotte Müller
Lighting technicians: Vera Martins, Charlotte Müller (alternating)
Sound technicians: Lucie Gresil, Maxime Pichon (alternating)
Make-up artist: Melissa Roussaux
Outside perspectives: Svétäl-Anand Chassol, Alphonse Eklou, Sabine Cmelniski
Assistant: Fanny Brulé Kopp
Harmonisation of the extract from Virginie Despentes’ speech: Chassol
Interns: Morgane Brien-Hamdane, Géraldine Tatard, Angelica Ardiot, Robin Dehenain
Production and distribution: ama brussels – Babacar Ba, Clara Schmitt, Emi Parot, France Morin
Executive production: ama brussels
Co-production: Charleroi danse, Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans, Centre Chorégraphique National de Grenoble, CCN-Ballet National de Marseille, Les SUBS.
Residencies: Charleroi danse, Théâtre Varia, BAMP, Les SUBS, Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans, Centre Chorégraphique National de Grenoble, CCN-Ballet national de Marseille, Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, Centre national de la Danse, Lafayette Anticipations.
Special thanks to: my daughter for her zest for life, Zoë Chungong for the heels dance tutorial, Yasmina Tayoub for the DJ set research, Selma Lisein for always being there, Svet Chassol for her support and family coordination throughout.
Mercedes Dassy is a Brussels-based performer and choreographer who trained at SEAD in Austria after a career nourished by the effervescence of the Belgian scene. Returning in 2012, she danced for several companies before quickly devoting herself to her own creations.
With I Clit (2018), an intimate and political solo piece that reappropriates the body and feminist heritage, for which she won the Jo Dekmine Prize, she embarked on a radical and singular body of work.
She continued this gesture with B4 Summer, a more introspective solo in which her choreographic writing is honed, questioning struggle, domination and vulnerability. The piece won an award at the Podium competition. At the same time, she created the duo TWYXX, choreographed a solo for the Opéra de Lyon and performed Pamela Chapitre 6765 at the Festival Actoral. In 2022, Mercedes broadened the scope of the solo to create RUUPTUUR, a futuristic quartet about collective power, performed by three dancers and a costumed device that opens up new forms of movement.
In 2024, she began a new cycle of research on the voice, writing and the pop figure of the singer. She then created Spongebabe in LA. (4 love and anxiety), a self-portrait where fiction and reality intertwine: a hybrid stage object, at once a performative concert, a choreographic solo and a behind-the-scenes look. The piece explores states of exposure, hypersensitivity and self-construction through a deliberately chimerical form.
In 2025, she signed a quintet adaptation of Deepstaria Bienvenue for the Lyon Biennale, while creating new pieces for the Mir Festival (Athens) and Les Brigittines (Brussels).
Since 2023, she has been an associate artist at Charleroi Danse, the FW-B Choreographic Centre.
