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Enigme No1 Adolf Wolfli

Posted 15 June 2016 by admin

Enigme No1 Adolf Wolfli

musical performance

“Good morning you gentlemen, and ladies:? what do you want, from, me: I am not among the tame: And yet no wild animal. Signed, Adolf Wölfli, Bern.” [c.1912]

A performance based on the works of Adolf Wôlfli.

Texts and artwork : Adolf Wolfli / devised by : Sylvie Reteuna and Eric Sterenfeld / directed by : Sylvie Reteuna / performed by: François Daujon and Eric Sterenfeld / music : Eric Sterenfeld / video : Kate France / lighting, stage management and artistic collaboration : Jean-Claude Fonkenel / administration : Christine Tournecuillère/ Conduite Accompagné

Coproduction: La Sibylle (production déléguée) / Espace Culture Université Lille 1 / with support from Drac Nord Pas-de-Calais / Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication / thanks to la Compagnie de l’Oiseau Mouche / special thanks to LaM, Lille métropole Musée d’art moderne, d’art contemporain et d’art brut, for the loan of the artworks.

This performance followed on from l’Appartement, an installation and walk-through performance created for les Rencontres de la Villette 2008 by Bruno Decharme, Kate France and Sylvie Reteuna, where François Daujon read texts by Wolfli.

click here for more about L’Appartement

Enigme No 1 Adôlf Wolfli was first performed on the 21st March 2012 at l’Espace Culture de l’Université Lille 1 in the cycle Rendez-vous d’Archimède: Raison, folie, déraisons.

Blanche Neige (Snow White)

Posted 14 June 2016 by admin

Blanche Neige

by Robert Walser, directed by Sylvie Reteuna

« Feelings are darts which wound me. What can one do with feelings, apart from letting them wriggle and die like fish in the sands of language? I’ll be finished too as soon as I stop writing, and I’m glad about that. Good night »… Robert Walser

« Walser’s Snow White starts where the Grimm brothers fairy tale ends, just before “they lived happily ever after”… to endlessly question the story of love and hate which is the story of humanity. It is an early work, but in it we find the themes which were at the heart of the writings and life of Robert Walser… Robert Walser was a German speaking Swiss writer, who died on Christmas day in 1956 while on a solitary walk in the snow, at the age of 78 and after 23 years confinement in the Herisau asylum. Fifty years earlier, Walser had described the death of a poet in the snow in his novel the Tanner children, that is to say, apart from a few details, his own death. » Sylvie Reteuna

Text : Robert Walser / Directed by : Sylvie Reteuna / Translation and adaptation : Nicolas Luçon / Designer : Pierre-André Weitz / Light designer : Jean-Claude Fonkenel / Music : Eric Sterenfeld / Video : Kate France / Stage manager : Pierre-yves Aplincourt / Assistant : Elise Lahouassa / Lighting assistant : Pierre Godard / Set construction : Bertrand Killy / Costumes : Sophie Hampe / Administration : Christine Tournecuillert – Conduite accompagné / performed by: Aurélia Arto, Olav Benevsedt, Claude Degliame, Eram Sobhani and with the participation of Marc Mérigot

Coproduction : La Sibylle / le Vivat, scène conventionnée danse et théâtre d’Armentières / Le Bateau Feu, scène nationale de Dunkerque / l’Hippodrome, scène nationale de Douai / a la Rose des Vents, scène nationale Lille Métropole / with financial support from la Région Nord Pas-de-Calais , l’ADAMI, la DRAC Nord Pas-de-Calais / Ministère de la culture et de la communication / The company’s residence at le Vivat was funded by the “dispositif d’aide à la résidence de la région Nord Pas-de-Calais”.

First performed from 2nd to 4th April 2009 at le Vivat, Armentières / toured to: Théâtre de la Bastille in the festival TRANS 09, organised by Jean-Michel Rabeux and Clara Rousseau, Théâtre de l’Etoile du Nord à Paris in the festival « On n’arrête pas le théâtre “, l’Hippodrome, scène nationale de Douai, Bateau Feu, scène nationale de Dunkerque, la Rose des Vents, scène nationale Lille Métropole, l’Espace Jules Verne de Brétigny, scène conventionnée du Val d’Orge.

photos © Sebastien Charlet

l’Appartement

Posted 13 June 2016 by admin

l’Appartement

exhibition and performance

« When we look at works of Art Brut in a gallery or a museum, we tend to forget that they represent at attempt by their creators to express a total vision, a vision which doesn’t differentiate between sound, language and image, an attempt to excape annihilation. So we have decided to put these paintings and texts together in one space, in order to explore the necessity which is the heart and the origin of these works, and to make this necessity resonate in the bodies of the actors and spectators.
Why an appartment? To create an intimate space, and a sense of privacy: these works were not made to be exhibited, and often were the fruit of years of loneliness and isolation. Inside the appartment, we can get close to the works and the actors, hear noises from the neighbouring rooms, and glimpse fleeting appearances from the corner of an eye...
Between four worlds, a universe.
Maybe we shoudn’t be in the apartment at all, there is a sort of voyeurism hovering around the bed, the fridge, the breadcrumbs… but that can’t stop us from being fascinated by this wild beauty.”

Bruno Decharme, Kate France, Sylvie Reteuna

Devised by: Bruno Decharme, Kate France, Sylvie Reteuna / With: François Daujon, Georges Edmont, Kate France, Valérie Szmiglieski, Valérie Vincent and the participation of Magdalena Matthieu and Marc Mérigot / Music and Sound Design : Éric Sterenfeld / Design Paul Fayard assisted by François Pinel and Emmanuel Rodrigès / Video : Kate France

Production: Rencontres de la Villette with abcd, la Cie de L’Oiseau-Mouche and la Cie La Sibylle / Production déléguée La Sibylle / Administration for La Sibylle Mélanie Hanscotte (Filage)

L’Appartement was performed 17th – 26th April 2008 in the 8th edition of les Rencontres de la Villette.

La Promenade

Posted 12 June 2016 by admin

La Promenade

video (45 minutes)

Video made with a group of inhabitants of Saint-Priest as part of the project Mécanique Urbaine, le mouvement de la ville, initiated by the Centre Culturel Théo Argence, Saint Priest, (February – October 2007).

Saint Priest is a town near Lyon, where it is rare to see someone walking, as nearly everyone travels by car – even the shortest distances. For this project we interviewed a dozen inhabitants, “chosen” because they had a particular relationship to walking: whether because they did not own a car, were in a wheelchair, were blind, or needed to walk for health reasons.

We then proposed a selection of literary texts in response to each interview, and together with each participant chose the texts, rehearsed them, and found a place to film them. The final video is a walk through Saint Priest, linking the people, poems and places.

The film was first shown as part of an installation in a ground floor flat in a block of condemned social housing in the centre of Saint Priest, at the heart of the issues of urban and social development / displacement facing the town. We lived in another flat in the same complex through the rehearsal process and shooting.

Conception : Kate France, Agnès Laurent and Sylvie Reteuna / Video : Kate France / Text research : Agnès Laurent et Sylvie Reteuna / Music : Eric Sterenfeld and Lee Hazlewood

Texts by: Balzac, E. Bronte, Diderot, Durif, Marie de France, T. Gautier, W.Grimm, Le Clézio, Matisse, Michaux, Charles d’Orléans, Périer, L. Pons, Queneau, Ramuz, Réda, Rilke, Rimbaud, A. Robin, Silésius, Soupault, Thoreau.

Performed by: Geneviève Ryczywol, Boudour and Mustapha El Boukhari,Yolande Morilla, Danièle Goder, Malik Hamzaoui, Hélène Badin, Sigrid Van Cauwenberghe, Corinne Nicoletti, Xavière Quemin and the children: Rose Coscolluella-Laumond, Emma and Laura Babin, Thomas Sterenfeld.

Production : Ville de Saint-Priest, supported by Conseil régional Rhône-Alpes, DRAC Rhône-Alpes, Contrat de Ville, Caisse des dépôts et Consignation

sensation (extract)

la plaine (extract)

DVD available.

Happiness

Posted 12 June 2016 by admin

Happiness

a film by Alexandre Medvedkine (1934)

cine-concert by Eric Sterenfeld

Cine-concert by Eric Sterenfeld (1h15)

Happiness tells the story, of the moujik Khmyr, a poor clumsy peasant, persecuted by the powers of Old Russia , looking for happiness…

Happiness was the last silent film in Soviet cinema, a tragic-burlesque farce that Eisenstein compared to the films of Charlie Chaplin. : « I’ve just seen Medvedkine’s new comedy, Happiness, and, as they say, I can’t keep quiet. Because today I have seen how a Bolshevik laughs! (…) I have to say how much I admire what Medvedkine proposes: in his discourse, his intelligence,and his wonderfuful choice of moments… With Chaplin, the gag is individual, with Medvedkine it is socialist”

First shown in 2005 at the Magic Cinéma Bobigny / other showings include October 2013 at the Festival Solo de Kermarron, Douarnenez, with Kerfi Trouger (percussions), and February 2017 at the cinema l’Ecran, Saint Denis with Kate France.

click to see excerpt

King Lear

Posted 10 June 2016 by admin

Le Roi Lear (King Lear)

adapted from Shakespeare, directed by Sylvie Reteuna

« I will do such things,— / What they are, yet I know not: but they shall be / The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep / No, I’ll not weep: / I have full cause of weeping; but this heart / Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws, / Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad! »

« This production was intimately linked with my experience with the compagnie de l’Oiseau Mouche… (The company, based in Roubaix, in Northern France, is made up of 23 professional actors, all with some kind of mental disability.) I wanted to make a piece where the actors of the company worked alongside other “exterior” actors. It seemed to me that King Lear, with its themes of loss and exchanges of identity, of wandering, and of and the fragile boundaries between reason and madness, could find powerful resonances in this context » Sylvie Reteuna

Directed by: Sylvie Reteuna / Adapted from Shakespeare by : Jean-Michel Rabeux and Sylvie Reteuna / Designed by: : Pierre André Weitz / Music : Eric Sterenfeld et Kate France / Lighting designer : Jean-Claude Fonkenel / Technicians : Pierre-Yves Aplincourt, Jean-Marie Daleux and Jean-Claude Fonkenel / Administration : Mélanie Hanscotte (Filage) / performed by: Jennifer Barrois, Martial Bourlart, François Daujon, Thierry Dupont, Georges Edmont, Magdalena Matthieu, Marc Mérigot, Nathalie Savary

Coproduction: La Sibylle (production) / La compagnie de l’Oiseau Mouche / le Théâtre d’Agora – scène nationale d’Evry et d’Essonne / Le Centre Culturel Théo Argence – ville de Saint-Priest / La Rose des Vents – scène nationale Lille Métropole / Equinoxe – scène nationale de Chateauroux / With financial support from DRAC Nord Pas-de-Calais/Ministère de la culture et de la Communication / la Région Nord Pas-de-Calais / Le roi Lear was assisted by ONDA and the collective TRANS for the Paris dates.

Created in March 2006, Garage, théâtre de l’Oiseau mouche à Roubaix / Tours 2006/2008: Théâtre d’Agora – scène nationale d’Evry et d’Essonne, au Théatre du Chaudron à Paris ( TRANS 2006), Comédie de Béthune, C.D.N. Nord Pas-de-Calais, Centre Culturel Théo Argence – ville de Saint-Priest, Equinoxe – scène nationale de Chateauroux, La Rose des Vents – scène nationale Lille Métropole, Théâtre Dijon Bourgogne, Centre Dramatique Nationale, Théâtre de Dôle, Scènes du Jura, Centre Culturel André Malraux Vandoeuvre les Nancy in the festival festival La tête ailleurs, Vivat, scène conventionnée théâtre et danse à Armentières.

Genius loci (le génie des lieux)

Posted 9 June 2016 by admin

Genius loci (le génie des lieux)

9 short films

9 short films made with residents of the town Saint-Priest as part of the project Reliefs, construction d’une ville de fiction, initiated by the Centre Culturel Théo Argence, Ville de Saint Priest (April-June 2005)

Legend

A traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated.

An extremely famous or notorious person.

An inscription or caption accompanying an image.

The wording on a map or diagram explaining the symbols used.

(Oxford dictionary)

The 9 films, which are from 3 to 5 minutes long, each figure one inhabitant. Each inhabitant chose a public or private location in the town and a legend – in the form of a written text, a story, a song, a poem, an image – which transformed the location into an imaginary space. The films can be seen together or separately.

Conception : Kate France and Sylvie Reteuna / Video : Kate France / Music : Eric Sterenfeld

With : Edmond Jeger, Rosa Hadj-Amar, Marie Protas, Eric Camacho, Nathalie Gras, Anne-Sophie Coiffet, Nicolas Monjauze, Larbi Djazouli, Abdelrahim Abboub / et la participation de : Guillaume Roussel, Jérome Granjon, Guillaume Berthoin, Julie Bordet, Mélissa Djazouli , Annette Buiron, Rose C. Laumond, Tanguy Lohou, Amandine Monjauze, Mme Kridallah , Tarek Khakifa, Thibaut Frère and Kristel Gauthier.

Production : Ville de Saint-Priest, with the support of the Conseil régional Rhône-Alpes, DRAC Rhône-Alpes and Contrat de Ville

The films were projected in autumn 2005 at the cinema in Saint Priest as a preview, and later at the theatre Theo Argence.

Film 5

Film 9

The Martian Chronicles

Posted 7 June 2016 by admin

The Martian Chronicles

concert/performance

“A little attention,” said the captain, red-eyed and tired. “We’re from Earth, we have a rocket, there are four of us, crew and captain, we’re exhausted, we’re hungry, we’d like a place to sleep. We’d like someone to give us the key to the city or something like that, and we’d like somebody to shake our hands and say ‘Hooray’ and say ‘Congratulations, old man!’ That about sums it up.” (Ray Bradbury)

music: Bruno Biel, Stéphane Chalumeau, Jérôme Kornicki and Eric Sterenfeld (collectif Strangelucide) / directed by: Kate France / video : Anya Tikhomirova / performed by: Georges Edmont and Marc Mérigot

performed in Décember 2004 at the Maison Pop, Montreuil, and in April 2005 at Confluences, Paris.

listen to an excerpt

Paroles d’Oiseaux

Posted 6 June 2016 by admin

Paroles d’oiseaux

children’s show devised with la Compagnie de l’Oiseau Mouche

“Sometimes, when I wanted to talk and the words wouldn’t come, my family would talk in my name. So I became silent. Some people reproached me for not talking, how could I explain to them that I was talking, but they hadn’t understood” Florence Decourcelle, actress in la Compagnie de l’Oiseau-Mouche

Paroles d’oiseaux, was a project initiated by la Compagnie de l’Oiseau-Mouche. This company, based in Roubaix, in Northern France, is made up of 23 professional actors, all with some kind of mental disability. The company has existed for over twenty years, and their productions with invited directors have toured all over the world. For their first piece for young audiences, they wanted to address a young public (children of primary school age) on the theme of ‘difference’. Rather than choosing a pre-existent text, they wanted to speak “in their own words”. The whole company were to be involved in the project, all the actors were to participate in the writing process…

The result was a show with texts and songs written collectively by the company, with a curious cast of characters, the Stranger, the Queen on Wheels, Monsieur Ouk, two pantomime birds and a toy dog. Phoebe Dingwall painted the large abstract backdrops which were wheeled around on a strange,metal, and not very functional mechanical device. We also went into local schools to research and film.

Marvellously poetic, the beautifully coloured world of Parole d’Oiseaux, directed with humour, dexterity and depth by Kate France is also serious and tender. This original work, which came about from the desire to talk to young audiences about disability in a funny but responsible way does just that by guiding us towards an understanding of what it is to be “different”. “Not like the others” is written up in black and white “We are all different” “We are all afraid” . Strong messages to convey that we are always afraid of what we don’t know and don’t understand…” (Brigitte Lemery, La Voix de nord 22/11/2003)

Directed by : Kate France / Music : Eric Sterenfeld / Paintings : Phoebe Dingwall / Metal constructions : Christophe Mureau / Vidéo : Kate France / Costumes : Julie Z / performed by: Virginie Bedart, Jérémie Boudef, Yannick Deraine, Baptiste Le Maradour, David Mariette / film made with the participation of Class CM1 Ecole Pierre de Roubaix

Production : Compagnie de l’Oiseau Mouche supported by Lille Métropole, Communauté Urbaine

Paroles d’Oiseaux was created in 2003 at le Garage, Roubaix, and toured to La Rose des Vents, Scène Nationale de Villeneuve d’Ascq, and other venues in Northern France.