Tout se pète la gueule, chérie

Frédérick Gravel

 Four men in briefs walk in, beers in hand. North American masculinity clings to their skin – its absurdity, its vanity, a violence too big to contain. But beneath the surface, something else: a dim urge to do better..

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Fists pound the floor like hooves, bodies rear up, collapse, and rise again – until a pole-dance solo in a blonde wig throws the whole display off course, while Stéfan Boucher’s live music swings blithely from Québécois folk to distorted rock. With undisguised pleasure, Frédérick Gravel and his crew move somewhere between the crouching beast and the stumbling man. Dancing on the ruins of masculinity, they conjure a funny, jubilant piece that hits square in the chest.