WHERE WILL THE THEATRE BE PERFORMED?

With Mowgli, in the jungle

DAVID BLACK / WORDS ON THE SPOT

7 June 2013. While we are in shock at the murder of a young anti-fascist activist the day before, David Noir m'sends this message : « This context of violence and repugnant denial generated by the sad news colours even more the desire for life to be told outside any norm of representation. I will do my best. "

In the very French mania for boxes and labels that are difficult to escape, I didn't necessarily put David's theatre in the 'political' box - and I wasn't even sure that this unconventional disturber should always be labelled as a theatre.

And yet... The Puritans, the first brilliant stroke of a theatre that he himself describes as "of warlike, sexual and playful childhood", already had the appearance of a manifesto. The word "theatre" has been so overused that it is no longer a subversion It's not that he's not a man, he's a woman, he's a man, he's a man, he's a man. The fact remains that the childlike joy with which he approaches it is really disturbing and subversive. (To the point of having incurred the wrath of the censors when he presented The Righteous at the Espace Pierre-Cardin!)

David Noir, whose face and body reflect a refusal to give up childhood, has never stopped playing with his accomplices. With his body, his words, and that cocktail of mythology and wit that childhood has the secret of: an absolute decomplexion in the face of the risk of ridicule, a seriousness in the face of the pretending. 

We are now invited to enter the game for which he has found a favourite venue at the Générateur de Gentilly. In 2011, The Golden Fleece already broke the frontal relationship and the unity of time. The Fates of Attraction, The five-day marathon proposed last April plunged us into what it is difficult to call a show, since the show is everywhere. Wigs, masks, costumes: everyone is invited to dress or undress. To take one's place, to play one's part, in this maze of texts, images and sounds. It looks like nothing and therefore it looks like everything. Word games, sex, jokes. There is, as in any game, an infinite seriousness, sometimes an evocation of the tragic in derision, a telescoping of meaning. An invitation to drop the social role as one drops the clothes, to gently reconnect with the possibilities that the exit from childhood forces us to renounce daily. Could it be that the infinite possibilities of the game of which you are the hero resonate as truly political?

v.s.

 Theatre or not theatre?

 Should we still be talking about theatre or are we in something else that could be called a performance?

 I m'obstine to say that itt of the théâtre. No shesitation, because that in the esprit of gens le thTheatre obeys ae form etabliea text, des pcharacters, a narration. I would prefer user another term, mais fundamentally. it is of the théâtre, because thate le théâtre is à the soonthis de road representedtion. It is in tort case thati that I would like voir un a little more.

 J'ai envie of shapes which moves awaynt from the narrativebecause, mThe sameland interesting, thisIte-ci takes me for a enfantand itela do not me not like it. Plus la narration est refined inteItectueItement, less it prend into account theléments fondamentals that I tryaie from travailler here: the report aux people present. I have a lot of loved the show from Rodrigo Garcia at Round~Panointed, but it was made a fool of by the reception from la room, who laughed complaisamment. The lieu obscured le sense essentiel of a midse en scene: how is it addressed?t-on and reçoit-on people? It is the enjeu of any writing theatrical. If the setting on stage is a art, is the one from sondand de do with those which are là. An art sawntifique, as the psychoanalysis in.urrhas thetre !

 With The Golden Fleece puis The Amusement parks, I follow lance in theepic, a gue adventurerriera - with toys made of plastic! – which requires a preparation en upstream, comme ae shipmention. Mais it does not exist that au when it is played out, les actors the savent. Many dtots and de ms andn scene the tiennent not compte. I have printingession to act from la place of l'actor. Je laisse en on the other hand the place at makes that some chogo to from the performance can be born dyears l'acte theatrical.

 Writing, between palaeontology and astrophysics

 This theatre is fundamentally written, which distinguishes it from performance. Solitary or collective writing, leaving what openings?

 My training de departure, it is palaeontology. Comme I do not cherche not the narration - without doubt it is not I am-je not capable, I do not suis not Hitchcock! – I work à upside down. Je bys of traces that emanate de moi – on ne littlet not do abstraction from la psychanalyse, in connection inextricable with the creatorion artistique, but this introspection must openir for concern the others. Je pick-up these traces as les debris from a naufrage and, at From there onwards, I reconstitue le swhatandte from dinosaure, or I le found.

 I write onlyl I knewis dyears le postulate de do from the setting on stage something of a little more beneficial for itself. It is not not obvious: we are constantly dispossessed by the mobility of interpretation, which do not belongs to you not. So, leaves to sink, you might as well give it all away: texts, costumes, props...

Writing, it is mine. I have been forced by my father, a rigorous old man. Others children are forced to play the violin, it is therefore natural. Jtry of make a poetic argument associated with another instrument, the game. It is a tool, a material that I like well and that I defend.

 I would like to to be published is to a stilt for visibility vis-à-vis from black hole we are making. This which makes us visible, they are the slag: traces, interviews, images, words, archaeology peripheral of a civilization which disappears at of each performance. In stage, we define ourselves by the hole black. It is necessary to from time to accept it, but it is interesting: it means that there is a material, sometimes invisible, and density. It is from there that theThe idea of Parques of attraction. If we to set up a mass in the centre of a grid paper representing the universe. on creates depression to which the bodies smaller will converge. This is called gravity, with all that that this word expresses!

  Entering the lhe game of the potache

 Breaking the frontal relationship, inviting people to enter the game, means creating interference. How far can they go?

 Interference has never has been problematic. It is the real which will happen that I am interested in: people come with this that they are, and create the decoration. A part of the stage design lise des images video. as a minimal frame, the other, living set is created with of body.

The only limits are those of the violence. Apart from be badly, in this reconstructed protected environment: the scene became almost a laboratory where one could manipulate dangerous viruses! At from the last night of Parques, on did not differentiate almost no longer people from audience of the actors. At the same time, I respect the inhibition of some, I did not desire to outdo each other, all the world has its role. I is not looking for not to change the people, I propose to them to registerire in a living writing. It is a wildlife and all me suitable in the wildlife! As in the poker, I bet by telling them : "You have also have a role to play so that thes interest mutually. Let's roll the words and the thought like a ball of breadcrumbs in the hand, like kids.

 Polysemy, words and images

 Trade, relationships, gravity ... polysemous words?

 If I haveime as much as the games of words, it is becauseiThey explode the direction of theiand that they make poetics fresh again. They are a shield contre stupidity, because that we are in the joke, more interesting than the pseudo-profound thought!

ChildantI me follow trained between the Muppet Show and Godard. He there is bridges between the two who concern all the world. The Muppet Show is a very strong representation, American the base, totally transformed by its French interpreters, thati have actually translatedt without betray. He there is some thing from Shakespearean in there: Shakespeare do not go to not out of fashion andt transcends languages, bythis that its language first shows images of thet that the of the image, it is of power be traduite. Little of authors the do: they can be found at their use in the word. This that I have want from concocting is the cake by Jacques Demy in Skin donkey, with of pieces from meaning and images in it! The public y a its place, which can be moved et questioning. This remits in question the notion and work. We is an author of a way neurotic, then that it there is other ways of being …

If I had had a budget consequently, the question would have arisen to pay lhe audience which s'éthave invested a lot. He there is some thing to question on the meritocracy of the public … The Fates, it was also an audition, for him as for us!

 Sex, nudity, transgression

 The sex is a constant from this théâtre, such as nudity. Provocalist or de-dramatized?

 The sex, for me, it's trueiment childhood. We a so much in make sulphurous... Pourtant, when you grows up, one isit although with his (or her) partner, we go to finds a little as a enfant : we try to, et thatand that works well, it is funny! À force of sacralize the sex - whati is provennt the fact of people stuck – we don't rend not crop service which ne successfulissent not to consider itsns violenthis. Perhaps should it be approached in a playful way from zizi that the a in us. For the this is not a gender performance!

Nudity, I'll take it. are appropriate from long date; I will notabandon because it is now à fashion. It do not go to reduced not the hornps sexuality, she shows the body in the touching simplicity of a childhood a little à the Mowgli. I believe that it existe a deep connection between our relationship to the body, our relationship to the war andt the consideration of other sexes. La nudity, ici, de-dramatizes the hysterical desire that the ready to men. It is not de-eroticised, but not crazy no more. We are not looking for this thing obsolete that is transgression, but to find a softness to be.

 ln situ ?

 Born at the aptly named Generator, Attraction parks Are they imaginable elsewhere?

 We do in function of a report tangible with the space et lhe walls. When Benjamin Dukhan, a dancer, invited me to the Générateur in 2011, I was stunned by the place, its beauty. Le place has a strength in itself, it is a monument, it a the etchité from la stone, et itt also a studio from cinema.

And it there was the welcome and the dialogue with Anne Dr.eyfus. He y a eu attraction natural, to the blow, and a vramap white! Le Generator a taken on real risk to say "  I direction that it is possible et I have want ». On do not hears it not elsewhere where, too often, on is face à of programmers that fill grids of a human resources manager! We we amounts granted time for understand each other: it is a unprecedented luxury and which is not violent. J'will dareis a parallel with l'eroticism; there is no no need to be attempted in a way that violent, sulphurous and hysterical for que the relationships exist! Go to à make a mistake continent, like Christopher Columbus, I seeks to this que des souverains puissent finance my armadas. It is a dream from conquest in good direction from term: expand...

Interview by V. S.

Generator of'unexpected

Dancer and choreographer, Anne Dreyfus has found the Genrateur de Gentilly au moment where she cherchhas a space to work. This lieu surprisingly large cube of all the possible, is laboutissement of a experience shared with Bernard Bousquet who en a designedu the bowhitecture. Anne initially had the idea of a lieu more oriented towards the plastic arts, from which the "  White cube ". The performing arts thet caught up. But this does not mean dConsider a tiered seating area and refaire a theatre! Nous amounts « multipurpose room ", she laughs. And the polyvalence from the space responds to its own questions on the systems of representation and its refusal of the frontal. Bien supported by the ville of Gentilly, the Generator has even welcomedi the myse when the church was under construction! It comes out of the cases, at any point of seen ate : Anne refuses to make it a garage, but without «  regular" programmings, where we welcomeIte udo not belle of atypicals, from Jean- François Pauvros to Alberto Sorbelli and the very interesting FRASQ performance festival. A space in form challenge for the artists, but a generatedateur in the sense propre what doesn't fit into the boxes.

www.legenerateur.com

CASSANDRA/HORSCHAMP 94

SUMMER 2013