2011-2012 Season

ORGANIC CULTURE

The cultural universe in which we live is evolving, inside and outside of us, more and more quickly, more and more profoundly. Standardization of culture, like Monsanto-style globalization of agriculture, is already here, at our doors, on our screens, and in our theatres. Everywhere, everything is mass-produced, mass-marketed, mass-consumed, as if everyone, no matter where, no matter when, with no regard for the Earth that gave birth to us, the one on which we live, the one that we might have chosen. Is our grasp on culture slipping away with these ever-advancing, ever-more-powerful, ever-more accessible – but to whom? –tools for consumption?

Yet, behind every technology, as if in contradiction, stands a human being. A human being, alone, standing before other human beings, standing on Earth – an Earth that is similar to no other and that never gives the same fruits, the same flavour, over and over. Culture can only be this: human beings planted on Earth, on their own earth, seeking a unique flavour, special flavours that they will never find elsewhere and that they know they can offer in a desire to share. What becomes of a culture that does not take root in its environment, in a society that watches it grow, feeds it with its identity, its contradictions, its resistances, its strengths and weaknesses? This, and only this, is how culture will survive and avoid standard format. Culture is, and can only be, an always-new, always-unpredictable gaze upon the world and upon human beings – the gaze of artists who elude standardization and trivialization.

Let us cultivate freedom – all the freedoms: freedom to think, to act, to be, and to be different. Let us respect the fragility of ecosystems, reflecting the fragility of the world, the fragility of human beings. Let us work the earth and let us rest; let us hoe, rake, wait, and cultivate patience. Let us prefer quality to quantity. Let us avoid underfeeding some and overfeeding others. Let us seek a balance. Let us live.

Let us listen and look in order to understand. Let us take the time we need to sort through the images. Let us always prefer those that come from within. Let us doubt, feel our way, go deeper, dig, find a world underground. Let us return to the roots of our art, balancing the needs of shadow and of light, as day and night are balanced. Let us cultivate what is most human in us: our uniqueness.

To succeed, we must do it together, with a commitment to reinvent every day. Together, we must keep our imaginations – all imaginations – alive. The greatest strength of human beings is their capacity to invent, to plan change, and to choose. Let us take the time to choose and remember this illuminating quotation by Bernard Stiegler: "People are endorsed for selling and wanting all barriers to consumption to fall. This system produces an economic populism that is the true origin of political populism because it engenders great symbolic poverty."

Gervais Gaudreault

Fertile Soil

The hosting of Théâtre Ébouriffé in residency for three years is another way for the co-directors of Le Carrousel, after a number of years of stimulating imaginations through teaching, to continue their involvement with a new generation that is taking root and pointing toward the horizon, full of commitment, foretelling a harvest of human dimensions.

MORE THAN 120 PERFORMANCES...

CUENTOS DE NIÑOS REALES

URUGUAY
Montevideo, Festival Internacional De Artes Escénicas October 18 to 16 

Adults and young people aged 8+

NUIT D’ORAGE

FRANCE
Paris, Le TARMAC - Festival Escapades December 14 to 23 | Vitry-sur-Seine, Théâtre Jean Vilar February 16-17

TAIWAN
Taipei Children's Arts Festival july 2012

Children 6 to 10 years old and adults

LE BRUIT DES OS QUI CRAQUENT / EL RUIDO DE LOS HUESOS QUE CRUJEN

QUEBEC
Assomption, Théâtre Hector Charland - FAIT October 28 | Montréal, Arrondissement de Saint-Léonard - Théâtre Mirella et Lino Saputo November 8 to 10 | Diffusion culturelle de Lévis November 16-17 | Granby, Le Palace December 6 | Sherbrooke, Théâtre Centennial February 28 | Sainte-Thérèse, Théâtre Lionel Groult March 1-2 | Centre des arts de Baie Comeau March 23 | Sept-Îles, Salle de spectacle Jean-Marc Dion March 26 | La Pocatière, Salle André-Gagnon March 28 |

MEXIQUE
Mexico, Compañia Nacional de Teatro, Teatro de la Casa Sede September 29 to October 30

Adults and young people aged 10+

UNE LUNE ENTRE DEUX MAISONS

QUEBEC / ONTARIO
Quebec, Les Gros Becs March March 7 to18 | Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne April 24-25 | Centre culturel de Beloeil May 15 to 19 | Ottawa, Théâtre français du Centre national des Arts May 23 to 27 | Montreal, Maison Théâtre May 30 to June 10

Children 3 to 5 years old

Photos, and illustrations:
Manon André, Bernard Bélanger, Véro Boncompagni, Caroline Bourbonnais, Bernard Brault, Nathalie Caron, Maxime Côté, Marc Cramer, Jacques Driol, Yves Dubé, Stéphane Dumais, Marc Dussault, Matthew Fournier, Émilie Gagné-Prud’homme, François-Xavier Gaudreault, Alain Gauvin, Sophie Grenier, Jean-François Hamon, Josée Lambert, Bruno Marcil, Wolfgang Noethlichs, Bernard Préfontaine, Olivier Prialnic, Isabelle Rancier, Mathieu Rivard, Yves Renaud,Daniel Robillard, Marie-Claude Rodrigue, Pierre Roussel, Jean-Christophe Verbert, Chen Yu-Wei, Izabel Zimmer.

© Le Carrousel, theatre company - www.lecarrousel.net
E-mail : theatre@lecarrousel.net - Telephone: 514 529-6309