What form would a bullfight take if it were removed from the finality of the kill, stripped of gender stereotypes and the codes of ritual violence? In the center of the arena, bathed in the musical atmosphere of Paul Lajus, Grégoire Schaller and Darius Dolatyari- Dolatdoust deliver a critical re-reading of this sacrificial parade, exacerbating the elegance of its pomp. By reappropriating the gestures, light garments and grimaces that are the ultimate expressions of an encounter with death, the duo organize a face-off that focuses on the bodily metamorphoses of the matador figure. Reinterpreting it in the guise of the drag king, the two challenge each other as they seduce each other, engaged in a circular choreography that plays on the trouble instilled in the genre. The fruit of research carried out in the field, in bullfighting schools, breeding grounds and a tailor’s shop between the South of France and Madrid, mata! slips into the heart of this aesthetic-political knot to think about bullfighting beyond the spectacle.

Florian Gaité