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Live Stage Stage | "Iconicum" | Visual © David Noir

Iconicum

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Stage Scène Vivante | "Iconicum" | Flyer © David Noir
Stage Scène Vivante | "Iconicum" | Flyer © David Noir

PERFORMANCE - GUIDED IMPROVISATION SESSION PERFORMED IN PUBLIC

A good opportunity to see yourself in paint

Formation Scène Vivante | David Noir | Classes, workshops, coaching | Theatre | Improvisation Method | Performance | Public Speaking | Visual © David Noir

Description

Iconicum means in Latin "made from nature".

The idea is to improvise from compositions that are gradually reconstructed live and organized according to master paintings or photographs of human groups taken throughout history.

For this purpose, the Generator's vast screen walls host :

  • on the one hand, reproductions of paintings or images in which the participants inscribe themselves by copying their postures on those adopted by the characters in the representations
  • on the other, on the wall facing them, their life-size superpositions, filmed and projected, serving as a mirror for the group, which thus becomes its own audience.

The first part, more individual or in small groups, allows each person to become familiar with the fact of being included in a projected image.

Then, set to music, more and more elaborate tableaux are formed, then animated, made and unmade from the starting image, according to the inspiration of the improvisers. Little by little, they drift towards other compositions far from the source and thus open up large periods of improvisation that are renewed several times.

The bodies, like those of the pictorial representations, can be stripped or remain clothed. Voices take place in the form of sounds, songs or words. Individuals remain gregarious or isolate themselves. Other characters are born from these initially frozen matrices from history.

Shaped by the participants and guided by a minimum of commentary, an immersive orchestral work then begins and unfolds in scenes, actions and performances that interact naturally with each other.

Although encouraged, nudity is not mandatory during this workshop and all layers of the body are allowed according to the sensations of each one. Indeed, this is not strictly speaking a work dedicated to nudity.

However, due to the style of the works chosen to support the participants' imagination, often epic and featuring nudity, it is easy to understand that the bodies will be all the more expressive as they will be closer by mimicry to the originals proposed as references.

The same applies to exhibition or erotic or sexual demonstrations. They are in no way taboo or forbidden, as long as they are expressed with respect and consent of others and as long as improvisation leads the actors and actresses to engage in this process. Physical violence, on the other hand, is not allowed under any circumstances.

It is the magnificent and vast setting of the Generatora place dedicated to contemporary art and performance located in Gentilly, south of Paris, which will host this workshop.

Our thanks to Anne Dreyfus, its director, who as usual, by her open-mindedness and her interest for artistic experience, allows and favours this day of research and work in her space.

Some examples of works that will be used to generate spontaneous scenes of pictorial inspiration:

Freedom leading the people by Eugène Delacroix

The Abduction of the Sabine women of Jacques Louis David

The Spring by Sandro Botticelli

Course of events

  • Warm-up (6pm - 7pm excluding the public)
  • Reproduce the gesture
  • Inserting the body into a composition
  • History and current events
  • Improvisation from the image
  • Theatricality of human groups
  • Invented Mythologies
  • Projecting yourself into history
  • Interacting with your own image

The psychic setting ofIconicum generates, from the rich and evocative iconography of classical and romantic painting and the constant support of powerful musical works, a space that encourages the emergence of universal feelings. We are amused and moved by the "grandiosity" of the human species, sometimes sinking into the derisory, sometimes bursting into a boundless outburst. Photographic and video recordings cover the whole event as well as its details, in an incessant reportage simultaneously broadcast. This global movement is from time to time guided by indications whispered to each one or thrown to the cantonade.

Gradually, without one even noticing, the play offers a succession of immediate, concrete situations that stimulate the imagination and take place in a tableau in which, without feeling threatened, it will be easy for the spectator to simply wander around, at a distance or physically, allowing himself to be caught up in the attraction of the process in progress.

Important note on image rights: Participation in the session implies accepting to be filmed and photographed.A signed authorization granting the right to broadcast the images of the performance live and possibly in a future montage will be required for each person wishing to register.

Learn more about the preparatory workshops

In addition to the tools traditionally used in the practice of theatre: listening, looking, feeling emotions, the method used on this occasion, in order to allow the participants to Iconicum to better apprehend the performance to come in public, aims to familiarize everyone with all the latitude of freedom granted during a "free improvisation".

Nothing is constrained or forbidden in this type of improvisation. The only limits are respect for the physical integrity of others and the limits you set for your imagination. There is no question of confining oneself to the sometimes conventional rules and the competitive spirit of the "improv match", which can often be paralysing for the most "timid". In this case, we progressively free ourselves by letting ourselves be inspired by the visual, musical and naturally human environment that has been set up. One goes in search of one's own expression with calmness and gentleness; which does not prevent one from diving deeply into oneself with exigency and giving body to one's own most personal universe. The poetry of each individual is the privileged gateway to create situations and incarnations. From almost "nothing"; from the simple fact of being, of thinking, of observing, of hearing, of reacting, this practice allows to extend its playful potential to the globality of a collective creation. The techniques used are accessible to all, whatever their level of knowledge of the performing arts. The group gets to know each other during a simple warm-up, based solely on movement and body sensations, before starting to work in greater depth, calling on the flow of their desires and their reactivity to the actions, moods and postures that arise around them.

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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.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Pierre

    Thank you to David and the Generator for having allowed this intense workshop in play, in letting go and especially in emotions. Rare are the spaces that offer such an opportunity for expression, and everyone was able to seize it in their own way. It is an experience that I will remember and that I will repeat with great pleasure.

    But I have a question: you said that the stage is the safest place there is and that you don't take any risks, which I understand, but what about violence between actors? When, for example, the play leads to touching and sexuality, how can we be sure not to exceed the limits of the other's consent?

    1. Didier Julius

      I completely share this feeling of the workshop and I had already asked myself this question a while ago, about risk, limit, non-consensual violence.... And when David says that the stage is a safe place, it goes a bit against what we usually hear (the "risk taking") or what we can feel personally (the fear of the void, of oneself, of the look of the other, of the ridicule or whatever...). But in both cases, it is a fiction and/or a perception and not a real risk (physical violence in particular).
      I have the impression that this stage, from my modest experience as an "amateur explorer" of this space, is a place of responsibility and listening. All in the same bath. All of us listening to each other and looking at each other. All to be watched. And if an action that goes beyond consent is attempted, it is much easier than elsewhere to say "no" and/or simply to get out, since it is a defined space with its own function. A step aside and "hop", it's over. This is not the case in the case of violence or attempted violence in places of "everyday life". The metro, the workplace, where "stepping aside" is sometimes impossible ....
      If the "real" world worked like a stage we would live better maybe, but that's another story 🙂

      1. Viviane

        Yes, yes, thank you to Anne for having allowed us to play in this magnificent space and to David for having set up an incredible device which, beyond soliciting our imagination, was able to highlight our gestures, postures and paintings created collectively.
        While being actors and very concentrated we are also surprised and amazed by what is being played.
        It is within this extremely rich framework that we have the great freedom to experiment and create individually and in groups.
        In particular, the one to play more or less naked, that's what we do during the improvisations, simultaneously and each one evolving according to his desire, possibility and inspiration.
        What I experience is that nudity, one's own or that of others, creates an unusual intimacy and gives a different dimension to the game. It is certainly more engaging for everyone and requires even greater attention to benevolence and respect for oneself and others. I fully agree with what Didier said: the risk is much more in the idea that we have of it.
        What I have observed, and it doesn't matter what the outfit is, is the immediate trust and complicity in the game that you feel with some people, with others the need to get used to each other or sometimes avoidance, and it's all a bit like in real life 😉
        Whether we are regulars or new participants of David's workshops, there are almost always strong sensations, discoveries, questioning or awareness, a real sensory and intellectual bubbling and the expectation of a next proposal.

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