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STAYING STANDING . . . I am writing you from Taipei, where I am in creative residency with the show Petit Pierre in Mandarin. Before me, on page one of the Taiwan News, is the photograph, taken twenty years ago, of a young man standing up in Tian’anmen Square, risking everything for freedom. Yes, learning to stay standing is an important step in childhood development, a moment of affirmation, emancipation, and autonomy opening up to a world of possibilities . . . But we must not deceive ourselves: learning to stay standing remains a lifelong struggle. Walking, daring, crossing borders, exploring beyond them . . . For thirty-five years now, the core of our approach has been the desire to push each creative project all the way to the limits and borders of what is done, and of what is not done, for young audiences; we are aware that it will always be risky to reject the formulaic and the obvious, but each day we are more convinced that children and adults live in the same world – sometimes sweet, often cruel, always complex. A world in which white and black weave together a wide grey zone in our unconscious, an immense fog in which things are never as simple as we would like young audiences to believe. Beyond fashions and trends, we have inscribed our work in what lasts, anchored our research and projects in essential values that see children and adults as human beings moved by existential questions that are larger than them and who, seeking always temporary answers, move down the road of life, movement, action. They are human beings who walk in search of a better world, like the landless peasants in Brazil. My directing work must provide an artistic encounter, regardless of the audience to which the show is addressed. It must bring out a sense of the elements of the performance, create the coherence that gives rise to dialogue that fits within its environment and its times. The direction can and must create the conditions for the most complete theatre experience possible, one that opens paths, leaves indelible and meaningful traces, in a time when the factual, the instantaneous, and the spectacular are held up as virtues and glorified as “the highest priority” in human relations, government, and, of course, the cultural industries. I distinguish between attention and watching, since it is easy to draw audience members’ attention through visual or performance effects; it is much less easy to reinvent, throughout the duration of the play, the fine thread that links the stage to the hall, the story to each of the audience members. With Le bruit des os qui craquent, I was able to observe the power of the link that the actors maintained with the audience, in this quality of watching that takes us back to our inner thoughts, the thing that is the most precious and the most difficult to obtain. The audience’s silence at the end of each of the performances bespeaks the meaning that each audience member was trying to find in this story that we had just told them, in the meanders of their unconscious, questioning their relationship with the world and questioning the world in which they live. For the artist, to stay standing also means being able to create this real intimacy with the audience and this quality of watching that frees the imagination from all formatting and diktats. It is to the power of our imagination that we owe our capacity to reinvent the world, and it is up to us to populate our existence with stories that will keep us alive, free, and standing, sheltered from the anecdotal, the ephemeral, and the superficial.
PUSHING BACK LIMITS AND BORDERS
LE BRUIT DES OS QUI CRAQUENT/EL RUIDO DE LOS HUESOS QUE CRUJEN Ontario — National Arts Centre, Ottawa September 30–October 3 Mexico — (Festival Internacional Cervantino) France — La Manivelle, Wasquehal March 11–12 | Théâtre Paul-Éluard, Bezons March 19 | Centre culturel Le Toboggan, Décines March 23 | ATP de l’Aude, Quillan March 26| ATP d’Uzès, Uzès March 30 Quebec —Théâtre du Bic April 10 | Maison de la Culture de Trois-Rivières April 15–16| Muni Spec, Mont-Laurier April 27–28 Montreal —Maison Théâtre May 12–16 A production of Le Carrousel theatre company and Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (Montreal), in residence at Théâtre de la Ville (Longueuil, Quebec), in co-production with Théâtre Jean Vilar de Vitry-sur-Seine and the Fédération d’Associations de Théâtre Populaire with assistance from the Aide à la création program of the Centre national du Théâtre and support provided to the author by SACD (France) Writer Suzanne Lebeau| Translator Cecilia Iris Fasola| Director Gervais Gaudreault | Cast Emilie Dionne/Audrey Talbot, Sébastien René/Jean-Philip Debien, Lise Roy/Isabelle Miquelon | Assistant director Stéphanie Capistran-Lalonde/Anne-Catherine Lebeau | Spanish teacher Victor Hugo Arcos López | Designers Linda Brunelle, François Cyr, Dominique Gagnon, Anik Généreux, Stéphane Longpré, Nancy Tobin | Production manager Dominique Gagnon | Stage managers Dominique Gagnon/Régis Guyonnet, Éric Gendron/Éric Le Brec’h Adults and young audiences 10 years and over
SALVADOR Quebec — Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne November 10–12 | Théâtre de la Ville, Longueuil November 15–18 | Sainte-Geneviève borough* November 24–25 | Saint-Léonard borough* December 1–2 | Maison des Arts de Laval December 13–16 | Maisons de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and Côte-des-Neiges* January 12–15 | Maison de la culture Rivière-des-Prairies* February 7 *Presented as part of Conseil des Arts de Montréal en tournée Writer Suzanne Lebeau | Director Gervais Gaudreault | Cast Marcelo Arroyo, Carole Chatel, Marcela Pizarro Minella, Alejandro Venegas, Jean-Guy Viau | Assistant director Anne-Catherine Lebeau | Designers Dominique Gagnon, Éric Gendron, Pierre Lafontaine, Francine Martin, Mireille Vachon, Alejandro Venegas | Production manager Dominique Gagnon | Stage managers Éric Gendron, Dominique Gagnon Young audiences 8 to 13 years and adults
ZAPATOS DE ARENA Mexico— Spring 2010 In residence at Théâtre de la Ville (Longueuil, Quebec) and in co-production with Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne (Quebec), and Grand Théâtre de Lorient (France) Writer Suzanne Lebeau | Translator Cecilia Iris Fasola| Director Gervais Gaudreault | Cast Martin Boileau, Marie-Michelle Garon, Joachim Tanguay | Assistant director Anne-Catherine Lebeau | Spanish teacher Daniel Zamorano | Designers Dominique Gagnon, Pierre Lafontaine, Stéphane Longpré, Nicolas Rollin | Production manager Dominique Gagnon | Stage managers Éric Gendron/Alexi Babin Rioux, David Perreault-Ninacs Young audiences 4 to 7 years and adults
小皮耶 PETIT PIERRE China — Summer 2010 Premiere in Mandarin in co-production with the Taipei Children’s Arts Festival| In co-production with Espace Malraux – Scène nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie, the Centre culturel de Villefranche-sur-Saône, l’Yonne en Scène (France), and Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne (Québec) Writer Suzanne Lebeau| Translator Camille Yih-June Chia| Director Gervais Gaudreault | Cast Ludger Côté, Jade Pi-Yu Shih, Szu-Ni Wen | Assistant director Ming-Chu Yu | Designers Marie-Pierre Fleury, Dominique Gagnon, Pierre Lafontaine, Francine Martin, Nicolas Rollin | Production manager Dominique Gagnon | Stage managers Dominique Gagnon, Éric Gendron, Martin Jannard Young audiences 8 to 12 years old and adults
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Le Carrousel, theatre company - www.lecarrousel.net
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