Creation 2012
A lot of the work I’ve done these past few years is based on a « poetics of the testimony », born from a dissatisfaction : performing arts, in particular what we call the « documentary theatre », often do not go beyond theory. But instead of trying to stick to historical facts, maybe it’s better to propose digressions and create states of contemplation, in order to get away from the analytical point of view. The interviews I made and used on stage through videos or soundtracks, always question the emotional link somebody can have with the place he lives in. Here geography is not about space but deals with subjective perceptions, diverse legacies that draw the identity and the imagination of a witness.
This is the research I want to continue with my new project. My last solo, Far… , was composed like a puzzle of identity. This new piece will be formed like an itinerary puzzle, created from the testimonies of people who had to go into exile because of climatic changes. For that, I will work with the author Gilbert Gatoré for the rewriting of the testimonies.
Far from being part of a catastrophic and futurist scenario, those people that we call the « eco-refugees » or « environmental refugees » are one of the consequences already clearly visible of the climatic changes, althought they don’t have an international official status like the political refugees.
Forced to leave for more livable places because of floods or desertification, those people are confronted to exile, with all the pains and difficulties that go with. Indeed, the experience of an exil is often made of dreamed cities, utopian countries and false hopes. The one who leaves his native country to discover a new land, will have to face delusions. Some he made for himself, some created by local mafias. Sold to war leaders, doomed to wander in west coast big cities, stucked at the borders area unable to come back to their family despite the price paid for this « somewhere else »... A lot of those climatic refugees are trapped by the geographies they fantasized and are thus confronted to the same tragedies that many other people that have to go on exile for political or economic reasons. In this respect, all the consequences of the climatic changes are not new and unknown, but can be some already identified phenomena. This is what I want to show with this project.
On stage, this creation will take the form of a bridge between projection and reality, and between the fantasy of a somewhere else and the real situation of an exil. The stage and the subject of exile have this thing in common: they both can be where illusions take place. The difference between reality and fiction will be blurred even in the cast of the play. There will be eight performers with outstanding physical skills including a contortionist, a stunt man and a magician. The disappointed expectations of the interviewees will be answered by a stage conceived like a sandcastle where reality collapses in smoky spaces, through sound devices and misrepresented dimensions.
These illusionist strategies will reveal questions: what credence does the audience give to images and story tale? For how long are we willing to believe in the weakness of the ideals and the hypothesis?
This is the research I want to continue with my new project. My last solo, Far… , was composed like a puzzle of identity. This new piece will be formed like an itinerary puzzle, created from the testimonies of people who had to go into exile because of climatic changes. For that, I will work with the author Gilbert Gatoré for the rewriting of the testimonies.
Far from being part of a catastrophic and futurist scenario, those people that we call the « eco-refugees » or « environmental refugees » are one of the consequences already clearly visible of the climatic changes, althought they don’t have an international official status like the political refugees.
Forced to leave for more livable places because of floods or desertification, those people are confronted to exile, with all the pains and difficulties that go with. Indeed, the experience of an exil is often made of dreamed cities, utopian countries and false hopes. The one who leaves his native country to discover a new land, will have to face delusions. Some he made for himself, some created by local mafias. Sold to war leaders, doomed to wander in west coast big cities, stucked at the borders area unable to come back to their family despite the price paid for this « somewhere else »... A lot of those climatic refugees are trapped by the geographies they fantasized and are thus confronted to the same tragedies that many other people that have to go on exile for political or economic reasons. In this respect, all the consequences of the climatic changes are not new and unknown, but can be some already identified phenomena. This is what I want to show with this project.
On stage, this creation will take the form of a bridge between projection and reality, and between the fantasy of a somewhere else and the real situation of an exil. The stage and the subject of exile have this thing in common: they both can be where illusions take place. The difference between reality and fiction will be blurred even in the cast of the play. There will be eight performers with outstanding physical skills including a contortionist, a stunt man and a magician. The disappointed expectations of the interviewees will be answered by a stage conceived like a sandcastle where reality collapses in smoky spaces, through sound devices and misrepresented dimensions.
These illusionist strategies will reveal questions: what credence does the audience give to images and story tale? For how long are we willing to believe in the weakness of the ideals and the hypothesis?
