Black Lights by Mathilde Monnier

Black Lights, winner of the French Critics’ Grand Prize for Best Show of the Year 2023 and the 2024 Grand Prize of the Syndicat professionnel de la critique française, is coming to Montreal. A powerful work that sheds light on the many forms of violence, large and small, faced by women every day.

Inspired by real events, Black Lights is part performance, part series, part manifesto, carried by eight performers and confronting the reality of violence against women in daily life. Renowned French choreographer Mathilde Monnier channels women’s rage and anger into movement. Drawing from nine texts by women writers from France, the UK, Greece, Poland, and beyond, words become gesture, emotion turns into satire, realism, or humor—and the female body itself becomes a manifesto.

Black Lights is inspired by ARTE’s landmark television series H24 (2021).

“This fierce and charged feminist performance raises its fist against every form of humiliation and predation.” — Télérama

Photo © Marc Coudrais