Ballet National de Marseille X (LA)HORDE

This performative exhibition by (LA)HORDE takes its title and inspiration from Audre Lorde’s essay The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House (1983). Through a constellation of performances and film works, the exhibition unfolds as a choreographic ode to the ongoing cycles of resistance, while interrogating the symbols of power and control.
At the core of The Master’s Tools lies a fresco of performances starting with The Beast, a vandalised limousine — symbol of wealth, power, and exclusion. Performers engage in a provocative kissing contest on this luxurious object, graffitied with the first few words of the American constitution “WE THE PEOPLE”. Around them, a relentless choreography plays out: the same performers compulsively spray the slogan “Tomorrow is Cancelled” on the floor, only to erase it moments later in an endless loop.
Alongside The Beast and Tomorrow is Cancelled, is an ongoing performative version of (LA)HORDE’s choreographic piece To Da Bone (2017), an expression of youthful revolt through hardstyle dances. This work reflects on the role of digital cultures in creating new spaces for uprising, and how underground scenes found shelter in online communities when the clubs they were born in were forced to close.
The film The Master’s Tools (2017), shown on a screen in Muffathalle, will echo the performances, in (LA)HORDE’s exploration of blurring the lines between performance and representation. Shot during the eponymous performance at Nuit Blanche in Paris in 2017, the film stages the same limousine and performers combining iphone and cinematic footage.
In separate rooms, (LA)HORDE’s films Novaciéries (2015) and Cultes (2019) will complement the performative installation in Muffathalle. With Novaciéries, (LA)HORDE stages a contemplative reinterpretation of Jumpstyle in an abandoned steel mill, mixing cinematographic images with homemade videos by performers themselves, some of which are performing live in Muffathalle.
Cultes, through a journey into a festival crowd, questions how the utopian ideals of countercultures are overtaken by capitalism—Woodstock’s rights, for example, were sold to Warner Bros just days before it began. Today’s festivals borrow the aesthetics of these ideals while embracing the logics of consumerism. Yet, they continue to foster moments of grace and large-scale human cohesion.
Through the interplay of film and performance, this performative exhibition offers a complete dive into (LA)HORDE’s universe and intricate works, exploring whether genuine transformation is possible within systems built to constrain it.