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Workshop "Iconicum" : participative performance
My gratitude to the performers, including the audience, who immersed themselves throughout this journey. My deepest thanks to Anne and the valiant team of the big G who put all their energy into making these moments possible.
Genesis of a collective improvisation
In my opinion, there are entire theses to be written on the interaction of all the exciting phenomena that occur within a collective improvisation session or a participatory performance such as we can experience in a workshop or, as recently inIconicumduring the festival at the Generator, in public. It was a real first from this point of view.
We had previously tried this approach with the members of the founding workshop of this process (7 years of experimenting and experimenting), but the result had left many of them dissatisfied, if not downright uncomfortable with having to conduct their experiments under the gaze of a "non-participant" third party. We were in the infancy of the practice of this method and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then; in particular my own practice of the so-called "guided" or semi-improvised performance, which has been refined and increased thanks to the research and creative work that I am able to carry out The Generator.
If I am not myself writing a thesis on the subject, I am nevertheless very stimulated to devote several articles to the subject of these phenomena which fascinate me and whose future study I sense as a well of unfathomable enrichment in the matter.
What is matter?
Presupposing that at the origin of the creation of any universe there must be a big-bang, I try to bring together the conditions of alchemy necessary for a maelstrom to form. The most familiar practitioners of this method, but also new participants who are very spontaneous and come from different backgrounds, naturally create this movement that is conducive to drawing and including any proposal in its heart. The primary aim is invariably to build a machine to maintain and produce a form of collective energy in other words, a generatorThis could lead one to believe that there is no real chance in the course of this quest.
The machine has every right to hiccup, stall, restart
Each new experience gives rise to the emergence of a singular prototype, comparable to those that made possible the beginnings of the automobile or the conquest of the air. The "failure" or feeling of failure, should therefore in no way be seen as a problem, at the risk of harming the highlighting of a much more ambitious objective than that of a "successful" show which, I would say, anyone interested in the stage should know how to produce without difficulty with a little experience.
But it turns out that this is precisely where the problem often lies: in the thirst to manufacture "beauty", a shrub hiding the dense and deep forest of unknown forms, apparently incomprehensible to our codified understanding.
There's no mystery to it; if you want to do the agreed thing, do the "beautiful" thing according to the idea you think you have of it; that way you'll be sure not to discover anything.
By doing so, you will deprive yourself and your audience of a very special subject to think about and to feel.
Qualities of the raw material
The material obtained during our workshop experiences is spontaneously found, albeit in less elaborate forms, in participatory performance. It has the advantage of being presented first in a fluid form, through which bodies, energies, sounds, words, looks and acts must be made to swirl sufficiently quickly for the inherent will of each person to give meaning to it to let go. This famous and much abused "letting go" is not taken by me, in this case, for an empty word. There is, not a will to break or to bend, but a dissociation to operate.
Our maelstrom must be a real centrifuge before it can transform and generate any energy whatsoever. It is therefore in the "chemical" sense of the term that we must understand the use of the verb dissociateThe aim is to obtain a separation of the constituent elements of the psyche according to their density, in order to be able to use them more efficiently afterwards.
In the same way that the centrifugation of blood makes it possible to obtain plasma, white blood cells and red blood cells separately in distinct layers, the concentric excitation of the forces in presence under the effects of permanent external stimuli (sharp indications, music sometimes, collegial playful training, progressive outpourings of emotions, agitation of the bodies...) pushes to organize spontaneously the dance and the awakening of the senses out of their contexts standard.
The word is out. Indeed, it's all there: in those devious as well as protective and constant ideas that we have of life, of ourselves and of others.
It is important, if you want to follow me, not to see any moral judgement or scale of value behind what I say, between what would be normalized and what would not be. I do not believe in the superiority of one over the other, each thought process having its interest and its various utilities depending on the situation. In the work we are doing, it is simply imperative to get rid of as much as possible of the outer layer that constitutes what we call "personality" in a daily social environment.
Like a crust hardened by the accumulation of the irritating effects of our friction with a world that does not go, far from it, at the rhythm of our desires, this surface apparent to all is above all the fruit of reactions to solicitations, disappointments and various aggressions, rather than a personal creation inspired by the movements of our heart.
I am using here on purpose, heart and not spirit or desire because I believe that it is truly in the last place that creative intelligence and animal impulses can be freed from our own diktats.
At this point, we are still not ready to really access it. These are just the instinctive beginnings of the work. There are still a few crucial steps missing before the obvious sense of our playground emerges in everyone's mind.
The stages are a gateway to the stage.
They bring the keys to the notion of gambling.
Living Stage | Stage
Ballad post "Iconicum
It's alive!
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Summer Body Workshops
A consciousness and a body: nudity and performance under the sun. Eight workshop sessions devoted to the body exhibited through performance.
Totally naked
Some objectives of the " Totally Naked " workshop: Risking oneself in a body bath. Allow yourself the freedom to stay there. Tranquilize your fear. To confront desire.
Of the truth of men
A day of participatory naked or dressed performance led by David Noir, to try to bring a little truth to the game, if not to life.
Ballad post "Iconicum"
A walk backwards towards the birth of a collective improvisation based on the participatory performance Iconicum given to the Generator.
Everything has to go.
"Everything must go" is intended to make its participants perceive this total eclipse of self-confidence that makes the interpreter in true research.
Iconicum
The principle of the "Iconicum" workshop is to improvise from compositions reconstituted live from master paintings or photographs.
Look away
"Looking elsewhere" is the very principle of theatre, without which it would be impossible to play a situation that clashes with our codes and morals.
Performance
In this performance workshop, it is a question of being totally actor and fully spectator, artist, everyday individual as well as researcher.
The scream, the text and the physical impulse
It is not easy to produce a free scream, authentic enough to find its natural place in the voice and without scratching the throat.
Mixing of genres
The mixture of natures that shape us and the contradictions that knead us are the guiding threads of this day of training.
Improvise freely
Starting from almost nothing, learning to improvise freely allows one to extend the playful potential of each individual to the dimensions of his or her own imagination.
Inventing an identity
Using various disguises, masks and accessories, this day-long workshop offers everyone the opportunity to develop a distinctive identity.
Play nude
Playing naked is in itself a speech. The aim of this workshop is to understand nudity as a relational, playful and scenic tool.