Self Unfinished

Self Unfinished (1998) was one of the first pieces by the French choreographer and microbiologist Xavier Le Roy. In a completely white room containing only a table, a chair and a broken radio, a man (Le Roy himself) tries with the help of his clothes to transform his body so that the audience ultimately no longer knows what sort of creature they are watching. Sometimes he is a two-legged monster, half man, half woman, and then his naked torso, its head apparently missing, looks more like a plucked chicken. This very funny performance confuses the audience: where does the body begin and end? What is front and back or above and below in a particular space? Do we really see what we see? What is male and what is female? What is the actual nature of the body if it is able to alienate and appear so odd to itself and the spectator? Talking about Self Unfinished, fellow choreographer and friend Jérôme Bel spoke of three fundamental metamorphoses: man as robot, man as monster and disappearing man, on the way to death. Although everything takes place in what appears to be a closed room, by watching we actually participate in this world of the robot, the monster and death.