Flam(m)e

A show by Coline Garcia, Compagnie SCoM, based on La petite communiste qui ne souriait jamais by Lola Lafon. The acrobat does not seek to embody Nadia, but rather to question, through her journey, the ways in which young female athletes’ bodies are perceived. Freely adapted from La petite communiste qui ne souriait jamais by Lola Lafon, Flam(m)e blurs the boundary between performance and fiction around the journey of an Olympic legend: Nadia Comaneci. Created in 2024 as part of the Cultural Olympiad, Flam(m)e looks back at the fate of Nadia Comaneci, the 14-year-old Romanian gymnast who, at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, caused the computers to malfunction after receiving the score of 10—never awarded before—seven times. FLAME is the name of the team with which Nadia Comaneci forged her destiny as a great athlete, a destiny exploited by the Romanian government to promote a model of communist education. Then comes the metamorphosis: Nadia’s body changes, the magic fades, leading all the way to political exile. The young woman’s fate intersects with the broader history of bodies desired and manipulated by states, whether communist or liberal. The acrobat on stage does not seek to embody Nadia, but rather to question, through her journey, the ways in which young female athletes’ bodies are perceived, far beyond their performance abilities, until they become objects of social desire and political stakes. Concept, set design and direction: Coline Garcia Performed by Clémence de Felice