creation 2012 1. Pick up your megaphone kit. 2. Build your megaphone. 3. Speak out! Company s contact Maud Robert 0033 (0)4 72 37 94 78 0033 (0)6 64 38 50 12 m_robert@kxkm.net 9 rue Francia - 69100 Villeurbanne France www.kxkm.net Press contact Anne Lacombe zinc production 0033 (0)1 49 29 00 08 0033 (0)6 07 04 15 94 zinc.prod@wanadoo.fr 9 rue de la Pierre Levée - 75011 Paris France
I am on the edge close to your face close to my story, ready to fall. Down below, the murmur of the town, men and women arrived from all over the town, look up stop and look at me : the face of a woman on the edge of a crowd of faces In an hour everyone will go everyone at home but for now We are here I can stay here, on the edge, alone, far from you, I can join you dive and blend with you my face transformed by the crowd can you read my story on my face? We are here my story is your story. 2
summary Presentation p.4 Intentions p.5 Broadcast System p.6 Relationship to the town p.6 Audience Participation p.6 Creative Process p.7 Description of the operation p.8 Introduction to p.10 Partners p.10 The Team p.11 Touring dates in 2012 p.11 Other projects p.11 3
A woman appears, on the edge. My story is your story she confides. We follow her through the journey of her life; we walk behind her through the streets illuminated with the faces of thousands of others, seized by her voice, taken by the music. A spectacular and intimate parade that questions what brings us together, and apart. We are one and many, in a society that constructs us as much as it consumes us. has been written for large audiences and made for the town, transforming its public spaces for an evening. There you will (re)discover the streets through deep colours - blue, pink... and through the facades, turned into a theatre of majestic and ephemeral projections. Behind is a desire to experience the crowd, the gathering of people. offers a collective walk through the town enabling the audience to feel the ambivalent relationships between the individual and the group. The common denominator of this face to face is the body : the body of the crowd captured live and retransmitted moments after and the body of individuals met before - and pre-recorded. The scenography takes over boulevards and squares; it encompasses a bus and two satellite vehicles on which perform an actress, musicians, projectionists and technicians. 4
a group of human beings living in the same society, of its fragmentation and of its construction. How do we live together and what is it that brings us together? At the heart of this great gathering, it is up to each one to find its place and its purpose in a society where the insane individualism succeeds to the loss of collective utopias. Intentions A crowd is meeting up. At the bottom of a building where, at the top, on the edge of a window, a woman, hanging, confides to them. From family memories to big historical events, she goes through those key moments that build a person (those key moments that shaped her identity). She tells about the relation to the other, to the others, split between the will to be part of them, blend in, and the necessity of standing for herself. Sometimes she invites each one to reconstitute those new moments that she, herself, has lived, that we all have, when suddenly, bodies are brought together, and because they are en masse, abandon themselves for the best...or the worst. raises the question of the social body Yet, the desire of finding others (or oneself) is certain : from personal identity quests to the increasing importance of social networks, any and all means are used to integrate a group and define oneself. journeys from the distant to the immediate, from the crowd to the individual. Our route through the town is interlaced with a voice orating the story of her life, like so many zoom ins on our singularities, followed by zoom outs on the body of the crowd. More than 300 people took part in the video shoots since autumn 2009. They accepted to play the game and let go for a moment. Depending on the scenes planned, a shoot procedure was implemented in the same way for each person. Their faces, their gazes, their silhouettes, in their way, tell a story and together form a unique mosaic. These images were fed into the writing process of the show and, during the scenes, are confronted with archives and live video recordings. The soundtrack was created in parallel with the video shoots. It is played live by four musicians located on the vehicles. Electro-pop-hip/hop, the music mixes traditional instruments (clarinet, ukulele, kalimba), keyboards, sampling, DJ-ing, singing and spoken voices. A text was purposely created for the show : it is revealed throughout the interventions of the actress but also in the broadcasts and in the projections on the city walls. Produced in French it has been adapted in German in 2012 and is due to be performed in English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. 5
Broadcast system Using our experience in the mobility of image and sound acquired through our previous shows (SquarE télévision locale de rue, Mémento), we have developed a monumental mobile broadcasting apparatus that combines live : sound, image projections and architectural lighting. On the bus rooftop, an image laboratory made of an animation stand and two retro projectors creates images in interaction with the surrounding building walls. The other images are broadcast by seven video-projectionists equipped with portable devices. Autonomous and mobile they use the urban landscape, invite themselves to people s windows, balconies, terraces, stand on the bus rooftop or on the satellite vehicle to project high up. The projectionists of these wandering images contribute to a choreography of moving images. The lighting on board the vehicles along with the colour gels placed on the street lights contribute to creating a singular atmosphere, transforming the urban environment and inviting the audience to look at their town in another light. The coloured lights and the projection of video images mix and complement each other creating a monumental global image. The sound, lighting and video are operated remotely via a Wi-Fi network specially designed for Figures Libres. It also enables the transfer and retransmission of live captured images. The relationship to the town The structure of the show is adapted to each and every town it is performed in through the choice of the itinerary, the architecture and the projection surfaces encountered. During an hour and a half the audience strolls through a section of the town transformed by the performance of. The public is guided on its journey through the town by directions communicated via the projected images or sound. In line with the narration, the audience is at times split into several groups meeting each other again later. Audience participation plays with the idea of the gathering : the audience the crowd is both the subject and the actor of the show. Live recordings, retransmissions moments later, gestures and fragmentation of the audience by confronting them with a choice of routes become tools for each member of the public to experience the group. offers an experience of the crowd and its relation to the body. On many occasions the audience is invited to take part in the performance: instructions given by the performer as well as projected text and images give them a chance to realise a collective gesture. The audience can contribute directly to the content of by sending messages tweets or texts retransmitted instantly. In some way they become an actor in the show bringing them to question the role they play in society and the ways they express their individuality, their personality, their choices. 6
novembre 2009 avec L Allan premiers tournages à Montbéliard et Villeurbanne november 2009 with l Allan first video shoots in Montbéliard and Villeurbanne december 2009 with l Abattoir first trials with the convoy and presentation to an audience in Chalon-sur-Saône Creative process The creative process of has been thought out in several stages to progressively reach its final form in spring 2012. Dedicated projects, sorts of in situ creation, are used to feed into the script of the show and are a way to try out and directly experience the scenographic choices. Periods of R&D complement the aforementioned dedicated first stages and lead to the production of new audio-visual and music material. The final stage of the development consists of periods of making, rehearsals and end of residencies performances. december 2009 at Citée Rêvée public performance for New Year s Eve in Montbéliard juin 2010 at La Strada video shoots in situ in Graz, Austria july 2010 at Villeurbanne (re)creation of images and sound july 2010 at La Strada performance dedicated to Graz, Austria june 2011 at les Invites de Villeurbanne implementation of the technical devices as part of a meeting with High Tone (Fool) november 2011 with Art R video shoots in Paris XXe and Bagnolet november 2011 with Le Hangar work on the mobility of the video-projectionists in Amiens december 2011 with l Abattoir combination of the images and sound in Chalon-sur-Saône january 2012 with le Parapluie first audience participation trials in Aurillac february 2012 with les Ateliers Frappaz work on adapting the projectionists into the town environment in Villeurbanne mars 2012 with Lieux Publics presentation of the bus and satellite vehicles convoy in Marseille april 2012 with l Atelier 231 1st dress rehearsal in Sotteville-lès-Rouen april 2012 with l Usine finalisation of the project in Tournefeuille and Toulouse 7
Description of the operation
A team of visual artists, video directors, writers and musicians, is based in Villeurbanne, in the neighbourhood of La Soie. Since 1995, the company has been offering urban performances created and implemented for and in the streets, the walls, the squares The city is their framework. explores its stratums to extract and recreate the city s grain, its asperities when touching, like snippets of humanity. They are words collected throughout encounters, video shots, sounds, interviews, recorded or filmed portraits, archives, traces or memories This documentary material is put together and presented during spectacular performances (processional or in situ) wherein are mixed live : sounds, videos, graffiti, collage and bricolage. Sensible interpretation of the city, between fiction and documentary, the creative process involves the appropriation of the public realm where humanity reclaims its rightful place. From its beginning, when the company was accumulating draft works in their experimental workshop (1995-1999) until today, the team has been marked by its emblematic performance : SquarE, télévision locale de rue, created in 2000. Appropriating the public space, SquarE is a processional show that projects, on buildings fronts, monumental videos that were filmed and edited in the heart of the city. In five years, SquarE will have been performed in twenty-five cities across France and Europe. This journey carried on on the net with the project SquarE Net, and in the public space with L Arbre à Palabres. In 2006, created PlayRec, a show that explores the social memory of a town by taking over a symbolic site of its history. Performed live by video directors, musicians, readers, painters and acrobats, this creation is a multimedia bigbang implemented in situ. In 2009 the company launched a new creation : Mémento, about the resistances of yesterday and today. Commandos go through a neighbourhood and commit bomb attacks; they fabricate frescos with graffiti, collages and projected images, in a sound environment created live. At the end of 2009, the company took on a new large scale processional project, going through a city and transforming it : is created in 2012. As well as performing their set shows is regularly called up for site specific installations or performances. These projects are created to purposely fit the context they will be performed in. This year, the Festival d Avignon has commissioned the company to create a unique homage to Jean Vilar. Called Place Public, it will be performed on the 14th July, on the Palais de Papes square. Since 2002, is has also been developing EnCourS, a scheme of artist residencies and artist interventions in the neighbourhood of La Soie, spanning the towns of Villeurbanne and Vaulx-en-Velin. As part of it, in 2011 and 2012 the company has been running the project of the Sentier Pédestre Périphérique (SPP) the Pedestrian Ring Path (PRP). Partners Residencies and coprodutions : Art R, Paris-Bagnolet, l Abattoir-national centre for street arts-chalon-sur-saône City Council, l Atelier 231-national centre for street arts-sotteville-lès-rouen, the Ateliers Frappaz-metropolitan centre of urban arts-villeurbanne, Festival Furies-Châlons-en-Champagne, le Hangar street arts factory-amiens, Lieux Publics-national centre for the creation-marseille, Nicéphore Cité Chalon-sur- Saône, le Parapluie-international centre for the creation- Aurillac, les Tombées de la Nuit-Rennes, l Usine venue dedicated to street arts - Tournefeuille, Grand Toulouse Funding for production residencies : Ministry of Culture and Communication-DGCA Project Funding : Rhône-Alpes Region SCAN funds, Spedidam With the support of : Fa Musique, Le Bras Communication Marseille With the complicity of : Nicéphore Niépce Museum-Chalon-sur-Saône Work on initial stages at : L Abattoir, national centre for the street arts, Chalon-sur-Saône City Council and l Allan, scène nationale, Montbéliard in 2009, la Strada, Graz (Austria) in 2010, the Ateliers Frappaz, metropolitan centre for urban arts, Villeurbanne in 2011, is a regularly funded company and is supported by : Ministry of Culture and Communication Drac Rhône-Alpes, Rhône-Alpes Region and Villeurbanne City Council 10
The team Artistic Direction for the company Stéphane Bonnard and Pierre Duforeau Artistic Direction and script for Pierre Duforeau assisted by Doriane Roche Script co-writer Stéphane Bonnard Music Marc-Antoine Granier, Mathieu Monnot, François Payrastre, Lorette Zitouni Video Marcelo Valente, Nicolas Thiry Performers Jérôme Aubrun, Géraldine Berger, Elphège Berthelot, Manuel Blanc, David Bourbon, Sylvain Dumaine, Marc-Antoine Granier, Thomas Hakenholz, Jorge Lorca, Mathieu Monnot, François Payrastre, Magalie Rastello, Marcelo Valente, Lorette Zitouni Production Management Katia Mozet Technical Conception Gilles Gallet Crew Balyam Ballabéni, Xavier Ferreira, Sébastien Guichard, Pierre Hoezelle, Isabelle Cagnard, Mathieu Laville, Nicolas Thiry Video control Thomas Bohl, Jérémie Forge Costumes Maud Lantelme-Faisan Il était une fois les créateurs Production Maud Robert assisted by Marie-Charlotte Barriquand Administration Julie Kalt and Géraldine Winckler Photographer Vincent Muteau Touring dates 5 may 2012 French preview in Toulouse, presented by L Usine venue dedicated to street arts Tournefeuille Grand Toulouse, in partnership with the Garonne theatre and ARTO 26 & 27 may 2012 international preview at the European festival of street theatre in Detmold Germany 9 june 2012 première at the Furies festival in Châlons-en-Champagne 30 june 2012 Viva Cité-street arts festival in Sotteville-lès-Rouen 18 & 19 july 2012 Chalon dans la Rue festival Chalon-sur-Saône 23 & 24 august 2012 Aurillac international festival for street theatre 22 september 2012 as part of Art R touring art factory Paris, Bagnolet Other projects in 2012 14 July 2012 Place Public, a multi-shape fresco presented at the Avignon festival; an evocation of the life and work of Jean Vilar as we celebrate, this year, the centenary of his birth. More information at : www.festival-avignon.com 1st, 2nd & 3rd august Spøgelser (Ghosts), an original creation dedicated to the town of Helsingør, created in collaboration with five Danish artists and presented during the Passage Festival of Helsingør s Theatre. More information at : www.helsingor-teater.dk 6 & 7 october 2012 launch of the sentier pédestre périphérique (SPP) the Pedestrian Ring Path (PRP) in Villeurbanne. An event organised by, a sensitive and itinerant way of discovering the neighbourhood of La Soie, spanning the towns of Villeurbanne and Vaulx-en-Velin. More information at : www.kxkm.net 11
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