Blood will flow in Avignon
Theatre Magazine | Pierre Notte | Les Fureurs-Noir
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THEATRE MAGAZINE

 

July 2004 / Pierre Notte

The Black Fury

 

Blood will flow in Avignon

 

In June 2001, Pierre Cardin, a master in his field, sits down in one of the blue-velvet armchairs in the small room of his Espace, near the Champs-Élysées. On the stage, Miguel-Ange, a handsome twenty-something, who has since become a singer, strips off his clothes. The young man wears only a real nappy. He takes it off. The ten or so members of the troupe sing Sardou, lay the boy down with his buttocks offered to the public, and smear his juvenile anus with chocolate cream. He screams, his nappy is readjusted, and Pierre Cardin leaves, furious. The next day, the third day of the performance of David Noir's Justes-story, the show is censored. The adventure was over. An activist in his forties, David Noir is always angry at the sluggishness of his fellow human beings in the face of family or citizen disasters. The ruined heir of the painter Cézanne, he has gathered together a troupe of a dozen or so loyal followers, half of them former street actors from the Parc Asterix, where Noir improvised with them in the intermittent troupes. Les Puritains, Les Justes-Story and Les Innocents are hard-hitting shows, with gore, porn-trash and hateful vituperations against the society of entertainment and generalized beef. As the independent director of a theatre in Avignon Off, the "Pulsion", with a capacity of a hundred seats, Maria Ducceschi discovers the world of Noir and his troupe and defends it at all costs. She programmed Les Justes-Story in the summer of 2002 and demanded no guarantees. (An exceptional commitment, since on average, playing an hour and a half among the six hundred or so productions in the Off costs the tenant companies an average of 7,600 euros, excluding tax. ) The members of La Vie est courte set up an hour away, in Uzès, at the home of the Avignon mother of the company's soprano singer, Any Tournayre. They sleep on the floor. Life is short but communal. The damages paid by Pierre Cardin finance the troupe, which spends ten thousand euros, without breaking even, and makes a profit of three thousand euros in the end. The only registration of their news in the Avignon Public Off newspaper cost four hundred euros in 2004. The company also registers for free with Alfa, a new competing association. They appeal to private funds, sponsorships and other self-financing. The actor Jean-François Rey, who moves and manages the company, encourages people to sell their belongings, empty their attics and cellars to raise the money needed to perform. Jérôme Coulomb, musician, composes on demand. Graphic designer and actor, Philippe Savoir draws posters and leaflets without any money, directs the Com, and has been rehearsing for the last six years like all his comrades, without a fee. A question of faith. In the City of the Popes, they leaflet, two hours a day, parade according to the mood, play against winds, tides and sometimes violent reactions of an audience shaken in its consumerist habits. Curious, Jérôme Lecardeur, Director of the Scène Nationale de Dieppe, attended a performance of Les Justes, and offered the troupe a residency for a creation in May 2003 within the Visu festival. With his first grant of fifteen thousand euros, Noir expanded his band. He composed Les Innocents, a three-hour unbridled show, sung and agitated, for sixteen actors. "Flexibility of spirit and heroic commitment are our greatest assets..." laughs Sonia Codhant. At 32, the actress has found her way in this free collective of performers. Administrator, singer, dancer, she plays the crucified messiah again this year in Avignon Off; and surrounds herself with naked men who wave a real "crown of thorns" on her forehead. Blonde with the body of a "Bimbo", Sonia plays cannibals or extraterrestrial children, becomes a warrior in suspenders in an acid satire of contemporary times, putting the world through the mill with an unbridled rage. She dares to do anything among a group of fifteen or so madmen, all radiating audacity and a rare freedom. Les Innocents appeared in Rouen in 2003 at the invitation of Marianne Clévy for the Corps de Textes festival, then formatted themselves into an hour and ten minutes for the Off festival. The cancellation of the In festival did not stop David or his fight. The artist," he says, "must remain a troublemaker, a buffoon. He should not claim his little place in the hierarchy of power. The losses amount to 7,000 euros. In the summer of 2004, they did it again. But the landscape had changed. Better off than in previous years, this time the troupe is housed in the Saint Jean-Baptiste de la salle college in rooms of two. An actor from the company advances the money, ten thousand euros from his own pocket, so that Avignon can happen. Noir lives off his mission: "In Avignon," he says, "I would like to eradicate the officials of the In as well as the slobs of the Off. Les Innocents is against the paternalistic theatre of collaborators, that of the fathers, who give commentary, comfort and consensus. We want to give love. For the financial health of the company, the interest of the efforts lies in meeting with programmers and presenters, so that the show lives, tours and sells. Otherwise, everything is done at a loss. They take the risk of not getting up again. This shows the commitment of artists.

Pierre Notte

 

Les Innocents, Pulsion Théâtre, 56, rue du Rempart St Lazare - 84000 AVIGNON remparts of Avignon, Tel: 04 90 82 03 27. festival Off, with Rémy Bardet, Valérie Brancq, Sonia Codhant, Jérôme Coulomb, Pascal Groleau, Florence Médina, David Noir, Marie Notte, Marie Piémontèse, Jean-François Rey, Any Tournayre...

David Noir

David Noir, performer, actor, author, director, singer, visual artist, video maker, sound designer, teacher... carries his polymorphous nudity and his costumed childhood under the eyes and ears of anyone who wants to see and hear.

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