Marvin M’Toumo

Temple Magazine

How did you come up with the idea to explore the different expressions of tears and use a mix of presentation formats to create “Concours de larmes”?

Marvin M’Toumo

“Concours de larmes” is a 1.5-hour spectacle that explores different expressions of tears through characters such as the crybaby, the diva, the bird of doom, and crocodile tears. I use the idea of a hybrid presentation that combines the codes of haute couture fashion shows with other formats such as circus, mass, and carnival. I describe it as a disenchanting tale and an unsettling mass, a depressed circus who explore how to confront the same culture of modesty, restraint, and taboo on emotions, around tears. 

Temple Magazine

How did you choose the archetypes you represent? How did you create a disconnect with preconceived notions?

Marvin M’Toumo

I wanted to alternate between figures that everyone already has a preconceived idea of. When you think of a diva, you imagine personalities that already exist in the history of music or art. What interested me was to play with these representations, to create a disconnect between what is expected in these words and how I anchor them in this all-white universe with its performers, models, performers, singers, and dancers. It's about twisting the archetype, making it more complex, and injecting other references. For example, the character I portrayed, the demon of tears, is an autobiographical character that comes from my own experience of tears. I was a very sensitive person and I have been criticized for crying since I was a child. This demon of tears embodies the subversive, immodest, disturbing and demonize aspects of tears. In “Concours de larmes”, I try to make it a cathartic space for myself and my team. We can really express ourselves beyond the injunctions we may face the rest of the time on these issues, on the expression of our emotions in our lives, in public spaces, at work, in our romantic and family relationships. For this project, most of us come from traditional, conservative, backgrounds, and these figures we embody very loudly without decency are very transgressive. We danse, we sing, we laugh, we cry, we are sometimes half naked, sometimes totally hide under a huge costume, but it's always the same question, what are we allowed to express? What are we allowed to show? You know, in our culture, tears embody the worst in a way. Showing emotions, it's like showing our body, full of shame and guilt. 

Temple Magazine

And this transition from the fashion world to one that is more closely related to spectacle and staging, how did it come about?

Marvin M’Toumo

My desire to do this type of presentation existed before my desire to get into fashion. I discovered fashion in the same moment I discovered performance, theater, and costumes. And what connected me to the practice of fashion was what I experienced in my childhood, like carnival in Guadeloupe. It's a space where we dress up, make our own clothes, and where we transgress the rules of who we are allowed to be in public space. They are figures from our daily lives, it's a space where we can mock, where we can reinvent ourselves. That's what I see in an emancipatory dimension of fashion. We talk about how to dress, not only like on the street, but how putting on a garment can allow us to express a part of ourselves.

Temple Magazine

You are currently finishing the tour of "Concours des larmes" in Switzerland in 2023, are you already working on a new show? Will you continue to explore this presentation mode?

Marvin M’Toumo

I claim my practice under the name of a brand and a live arts company; Marvin M’Toumo. It's a hybrid format that both pirates in fashion and live arts, and economically allows me to produce presentations, shows, but also objects, clothes, publications, or music. The temporality is more that of live arts, we take the time to dissect things, to nourish the projects, to do residences with the whole team. "Concours de larmes" is the first chapter of the brand and company, we are writing the second chapter which will be called “Rectum Crocodile” and will be presented during the dance festival Emergentia in Geneva in November 2024.

Temple Magazine

When you say "we", are you referring to a team, your performers?

Marvin M’Toumo

It's mostly the same team, the same performers on stage. We continue together, it works like a company in the end. The idea is not to change teams for each project, but rather to consolidate it. I really love the person I work with, it's more than a brand, it a real community and they inspire a lot the project. 

Temple Magazine

As a hybrid group that can absorb projects and people, it allows you to independently work with people and create your own economy.

Marvin M'Toumo

Exactly. If my challenge was to get funded as a young fashion designer, that would have been another challenge. I'm an image designer, not in the superficial and commercial sense. What interests me is not producing on the other side of the world to build a community, but rather telling stories through collections. It's a space where I don't really do ready-to-wear, Haute Couture pieces, or things that are completely claimed as costume.

I think in multiple formats. There was a certain excitement after “Concours de larmes” in Switzerland, and immediately after, there were possibilities to capitalize on that moment to continue writing. Very concretely, I didn't think people were going to give me this place. I thought it was going to be more about the clothing, but it opened possibilities. 

The next piece, “Rectum Crocodile” is more focused on choreography and text. It's not the same codes in terms of show. The type of format will also be strongly linked to encounters and economic opportunities. I have many projects in my pocket that I haven't released yet through the brand. The idea here is also to offer a practice and try to be readable while remaining free. My work is still unreadable for many people; they don't really understand what I'm doing, and I want to use this brand to tale the story that will help to understand. 

Temple Magazine

Theater offered you this possibility that you didn't find directly in the fashion industry.

Marvin M'Toumo

Yes, in the long run, I would like it to be a 50/50. Even without talking about the binary mode/theater, I would like to create an articulation that is very pragmatic and allows for the communication of the hybridity of the project. I like the idea of taking the fashion brand format and rethinking it through other practices. There are brands like Bless that I find incredible, or the Acne Studios magazine project.

Temple Magazine

Where we find this mixture of several industries to create something less expected or conventional.

Marvin M'Toumo

We can afford to look less for fitting in with the industry at all costs so that it works, but more to find things that correspond to us where we have a real place. I couldn't do ready-to-wear and release a collection every three or six months. That's not where my ambitions lie for the moment. I like people to come and live an experience with us, to share a message. We fashion designers have a lot of space to create images and stay silent, but we don't have it to speak. Theater offers opportunities in the long run; to give, to tell something, to be contradictory, to go into detail, to be complex. And I think that's a huge opportunity.

CREDITS

Written and directed by Marvin M’toumo
with theater compagny Hibiscus Culturiste featuring Davide Christelle Sanvee, Chienne de garde, Elie Autin, Clarisse Charlot-Buon, Marvin M’toumo, Amy Mbengue, Djamila Imani
Stage Director Assistant
Clarisse Charlot-Buon
Artistique direction consultant 
Svétäl Schassol
Text consultant
Sharon Alfassi
Costume
Marvin M'toumo
Assistant design costume
Marie Schaller, Carmen Soto, Margot Levasseur, Louis Garcia, Vincent Delobelle, Maëlys Bois, Noa Toledano, Dahlia Koumsam, Elisa Marciano, Elissia Schiavon
Design costume consultant
Louise Jarrige Leberre, Aurore Marquis, Paul Pourcelot
Technical assistant tailor
Aurore Marquis
Collaboration costume butterfly wings
Doria Gomes Rosay
Collaboration costume hats
Marine Lefebvre
Collaboration pattern making
Philippine Lafarge
Music
Vica Pacheco and Baptiste Lechapelain
Stage light
Alessandra Domingues
Design scenography
Marvin M'toumo
Construction scenography
Angelo Bergomi
Make-up artist
Chaïm Vischel
Administration and production
Anna Ladeira – Le Voisin
With the help and co-production of TU – Théâtre de l’Usine
With the support of Ville de Genève, la Loterie Romande, Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art, Fondation Jan Michalski, Fondation Ernst Göhner
Thanks to the TU team Lea Genoud, Hélène Mateev
Thanks to Patrick De Rham
Special Thanks to Aude Fellay and Soñ Gweha