EUROPEAN PROJECT 2008-2009
` LA-BAS-ICI IMAGE AIGUË
CHRISTIANE VÉRICEL THEATRE COMPANY
HOW CAN WE PERFORM TOGETHER By blending different personalities and cultures on stage, we are giving people a chance to get out and see what’s happening elsewhere, what’s going on around them. It is an invitation for people to explore their imagination, and to see their neighbour, whoever that may be, from a different, more positive angle.
The Image Aiguë Company was founded in 1983 by Christiane Véricel, who built up a team of twenty or so artists (performers, scenographers, musicians...), technicians and administrators around her theatrical ambitions. Her artistic practice offers a two-fold originality: the performances are not based on a predetermined script but on an alliance of music, text and image. All her productions involve adults, children and teenagers of different nationalities, living in France or abroad, natives or immigrants, speaking their native language on stage. The productions result from Image Aiguë performers meeting child and teenage actors on their travels, and with whom they have united through performing.
IF WE DON’T SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE?
WITHOUT FUN THERE IS NO THEATRE…
Why perform together when we don’t speak the same language? To experience the delight in inventing a common artistic language together! For over 25 years, Christiane Véricel has been uniting actors of different cultures, backgrounds, and ages on stage. They are all on stage with a desire to meet, live and share theatrical experiences together: children, teenagers, and adults; amateur actors and professional performers, citizens of France and foreign nationals, living in their own country or in their land of refuge. Together they take part in performances that are like no other, where everyone speaks their native language - creating an understanding through new forms of language: voice intonations, facial expressions, body language, images, music, emotions... Performances in which each person
expresses their own personality and their own culture through their personal and real world vision. Christiane Véricel travels to support and emphasise artistic creation in working-class districts all over the world. It is under her direction that these boys and girls, these men and women, create stories that reflect the numerous and contradictory reflections of our time. Universal stories that draw inspiration from reality, like the life of every performer, to speak about difference, identity, belonging....
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IMAGE AIGUË
Recreating a slice of world on stage
TALK How to explain and convey that violence must be acted out without being violent, that tenderness must be felt to be expressed, that the pleasure of having can only be portrayed through being deprived in the interest of the story. To fail to achieve a goal by wanting it so desperately, to portray awkwardness by being dexterous, to brush without hitting, to hit without knocking down.. Speak while eating without pretending to eat... recreate a touching gesture, taken by surprise during a rehearsal, the right and necessary attitude.
Founder and artistic director of Image Aiguë, Christiane Véricel draws inspiration from the cultural and human diversity of the adult and child actors she has met. She creates a theatre that is sensitive, vibrant, and colourful; a theatre that wishes to contribute to a world of sharing and diversity. Christiane Véricel interviewed by Manuel Piolat-Soleymat What was it that led you to set up Image Aiguë in 1983? It began with an emotion. At the time, I organised theatre workshops in immigrant neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Saint-Etienne, with children and teenagers from various countries. I was immediately seduced by the mixture of colours, cultures, ages, and languages that I found before my very eyes. It was as if a slice of life had been presented before me. This touched me very much; I was very moved. For the first time, I realised that theatre could be a wonderful way to bring very different people together, to have them live and create together. Faced with all these children and teenagers, united on stage - possibly for the first time in their life - I realised that even if we do not speak the same language, even if we do not have the same roots, even if we are not the same age, we can tell the same story together through theatre.
For 25 years you have been offering an artistic approach aimed at making theatre an art of openness and debate… Exactly. For our company, mixing different personalities and cultures on stage is a chance to go out and see what is happening elsewhere, what’s going on around you. It is an invitation to travel through your imagination, to see your neighbour, whoever that may be, from a different, more positive angle. Our artistic process involves freedom with speech and theory. Movement, expression, and sharing are more important. The meetings and exchanges that forge during our performances are very concrete, very living experiments, experiments that try to emphasise the real-life experiences and emotions of every artist taking part in the production. Every day, I realise that the stage is a tremendous catalyst. It allows us to make connections, to open our eyes to the diversity of the world, to the complexity of the interpersonal mechanisms that our societies are built around.
The scripts of your performances are never written in advance. Can you take us through your creative process? Our scripts cannot be written in advance as they are delivered in the performers’ original language. We proceed in several stages. Firstly, it should be noted that the adult actors on stage are professional artists that are part of the Company. As for the children and teenagers, we meet them at workshops that we organise in working-class neighbourhoods in France or abroad, upon the request of festivals, theatres, and cultural institutions. These workshops allow us, first of all, to introduce our artistic process, to meet the participants, and then train them in Image Aiguë theatrical techniques.
“It is essential that the identity and desires of each are expressed to enrich the play” Is it during this stage that you spot the children who will later go on to become part of your production? Yes, but it is not a one-way choice. The workshops allow the children and teenagers to get to know us and decide whether they wish to go further with us. The first stage really gives rise to mutual spotting and familiarisation. Then, when the artistic team is formed, I ask the actors to work on parts of very simple stories regarding current affairs or situations that everyone is familiar with. I learnt, through encountering very different cultures, to create universal stories; stories that individuals coming from various backgrounds can get involved in, in a personal, intimate, almost immediate way. I then draw inspiration from what begins to take shape before me, and from there I invent characters and construct the framework of the production.
ANGER comes from aggression, energy; it is not disappointment. Sometimes expressed through violence, which has nothing to do with fury, nor rage.
In the end, does your imagination as stage director take precedence over that of the actors?
LUST is not desire; it requires a certain appetite, perhaps responding to a need, a desire, a demand. More than a fondness (which is not just an inclination), it induces temptation and raises hopes.
No, it’s really a constant development of all our imaginations. It is essential that the identity and desires of each actor are expressed to enrich the play. If a situation seems especially resonate in the mind of an actor, I decide to dig more into that than into another, to latch onto this particular resonance. Each group member is alternately performer and spectator, allowing extremely valuable exchanges. Then, my role as stage director of course is to ensure that the stories and characters that we create together remain relevant and comprehensible to the audience. Spectators should never feel excluded from what is happening on stage.
Some unforgettable theatre’s moments…
Once this initial research is carried out, what direction do you take? I then begin a period of more solitary work, which is in order to establish connections between what the actors express and what I, as an artist, personally want to say to the world. I therefore feed my reflections, my view, and my own feelings to what is happening on stage. I centre, I refocus, and I work on the performers’ energy and inner state to make the show that we’re creating “repeatable”. Besides, it is important to me to continue to develop throughout the productions. This is to protect the characters’ true personalities and emotions. The performance must remain alive, and the pleasure of going to the theatre also.
Do you feel that you are working in an activist theatre, one that goes back to the idea of working-class theatre? Our company is completely in line with these two paths, which actually merge into one: it is an activist and a working-class theatre. The time that we spend with residents in neighbourhoods that we are involved in is also because we want to attempt to change the root causes of what distances these people from the theatre, and from institutional culture in general. We try to inject some enthusiasm so that they will continue to visit places of artistic expression once we have
left. The linguistic diversity of our performances aims to establish a new relationship between the audience and what takes place on stage. Because actors relate stories and transmit them in many ways, not just through words. Voice intonations, facial expressions, body language, movements and interaction, emotions...: all these form a scenic language that put everyone on equal.
Does this language throw light on any particular themes? In a certain way, all my productions seek to highlight the difficulties and the pleasures that derive from living together when we are all different, when we do not all speak the same language, when we are not all of the same culture. The images and sensations that arise often touch humour, violence, poetry. What fascinates me is the creation of a micro society, showing the audience how the bonds and relationships between all the characters are formed on stage, and at the same time avoiding any form of didacticism.
Since 1983, Image Aiguë has come up with 34 original productions, performed over 1000 times in 30 countries and in over 230 venues. Its work is received in institutions and alternative venues in France, in Europe and all over the world.
1983 Christiane Véricel orga- 1998 Image Aiguë organises 2000 Having spent the prenises theatre workshops with children and teenagers from all origins in a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Saint Etienne. She decides to set up Image Aiguë in order to continue her career in theatre.
1994 In Nazareth, the largest
Arab city in Israel, Christiane Véricel has Muslim and Jewish children acting side by side. From these times of intense confrontation and surprise, the production Adama is born. It goes on tour in Europe.
drama workshops with children from Pondicherry. Following this experience, young Prakash and Antoniamal travel to France to take part in the production “Nandri” at the Brittany Drama Centre. They then proceed to tour more than twenty-three French cities.
1999
After India, Brazil. Christiane Véricel leaves for Rio de Janeiro, where she joins an association that cares for children living on the street. It is through working with some of them that the “Dia a dia” production is created.
vious years travelling the globe, the Image Aiguë group decides to refocus their attention on mainland Europe. Welcomed at the heart of a Romany camp in Macedonia, the company creates “Curumi”, and goes on tour in Europe.
2008 As part of the artistic
project “L’Europe commence ici ou là bas” (Europe starts Here or over there), in October Image Aiguë creates “Ici là-bas” at the Les Célestins theatre in Lyon. A tour of France, the Czech Republic, and Sweden, is scheduled for 2009.
PLEASURE more than well-
being, not quite happiness. It is stronger than contentment; it is sometimes felt with delight. Involves perhaps bliss or ecstasy, it is expressed with joy, requires a quest for satisfaction. TENDERNESS is not affection, it is different from friendship, and weaker than passion or adoration. Added to love, it is also sweetness, but not only. Neither kindness nor dedication exactly.
LOOK, watch, and be watched, are obviously keywords in theatre, the stage being the archetypal place where one is seen, presented before us under carefully prepared lighting. Look is fundamental to stage presence; it is with this that the actor exists through his character, it is an invisible thread on which to build. There is a look of complicity, of course, between the actors. The audience’s look.
Their bodies speak their culture, their mouths speak their language, but together they act out our daily reality... Sabrina Weldman, La Bellone House of Performing Arts
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IMAGE AIGUË
In “Ici là-bas” there is: 1 brioche, 1 bag˘lama,
some chairs, 1 large violin, juggling balls, 1 egg, 1 huge ball - 1.80m in diameter, 1 diatonic accordion, 1 knife, 1 small violin, 1 red thread, 1 darbouka, 1 white thread, 1 hook, 1 large hammer, 1 box, 1 small red bike. It can all be found in “Ici là-bas”. There are also performers of different generations and multiple origins. Children (acting alternately - MBariki, Liliane, Luca, Zina, Armelle, Maciej), teenagers (acting alternately - Servan, Olga) and adults, professional musicians and actors (Rohi, Franck, Frédéric, Sandrine, Burhan). Conceived under the “Europe starts Here or over there” project (a set of artistic and cultural activities developed by Image Aiguë at the heart of the three countries providing EU Presidency from July 2008 to December 2009: France, the Czech Republic and Sweden). “Ici là-bas” highlights the complexity of power and influence that emerge in everyday life between human beings. Because, if like all the performances of Christiane Véricel’s troupe, this new production expands the notions of territory, difference, identity, “living together”, this one particularly highlights the issue of belonging.
Threads of the manipulation Many threads weave, tighten and become entangled to demonstrate on stage the violence, tenderness, fun, and of course poetry, that
really dramatic, creates scenes that are beyond didacticism and simplistic visions of life. These are scenes that, just like the artists taking part in our company performances, reflect rich, deep and mixed worldly images.” These dramatic images, managing to establish a concrete and significant connection with the public, evoke shared emotions that continue long after the performance has finished, resonating in the head and body of all.
Distribution Conception and production: Christiane Véricel ; lighting: Michel Theuil ; Image Aiguë actors and performers: Rohi Ayadi, Franck Kayap, Violaine Véricel ; around 10 performers (actors, musicians, circassians) of European Theatrical Ensemble (France, Poland, Turkey) ; and guest artists from France, Czech Republic, Sweden; stage management: Bruno Corona form everyday human relations. A tangle of bodies struggle in an incoherent and futile manner for some scraps of bread; a mistreated violinist helplessly clutches to the music from his
THEATRICAL UNFOLDING TRAVEL JOURNAL - ISTANBUL, DIYARBAKIR, AND LYON 2007-2008
PUBLICATIONS
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Reviews published about the show Addio Mamma throughout the project “A singular approach: the theatre to assert oneself as a citizen of the world”.
instrument. The numerous short scenes created by Image Aiguë provoke laughter from situations that are sometimes serious and disturbing. “I always need my actors to make me laugh, says
Christiane Véricel. For me, it is very important. Because laughter involves not only the idea of pleasure - that is central to my theatre - but it also, mixed with situations that are sometimes very harsh and
Co-production With Les Célestins - Théâtre de Lyon, Trident - Scène Nationale de Cherbourg, Le Théâtre des 2 Rives Centre Dramatique Régional de Haute-Normandie.
From July 1st 2008 to December 31st 2009, during the French, Czech and Swedish EU Presidency, Image Aiguë is organising a series of artistic events as part of its “Europe starts Here or over there” project. It is supported by the European Commission’s EuroGlobe program, which is aimed at creating a European public forum for debate, culture and learning.
www.image-aigue.org Partners Prague : KC Zahrada Stockholm : Unga Klara-Stadteatern Krakow : Reminiscencje Festival Istanbul : Anadolu Kültür, S.K.Y.G.D
Text: Christiane Véricel and Manuel Piolat-Soleymat Photography: Nicolas Bertrand Graphics: Gérard Paris-Clavel, assisted by Anne Desrivières Photo-engraving, printing: Jourdan Printing Works Published in October 2008 This publication has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Image Aigu Company and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union
Image Aiguë Administration Team Nicolas Bertrand, administrator Pierre Brini, secretary-general Ilitza Georgieva, communications manager Marianne Schlegel, administration assistant Leïla Anis, communications assistant February 2005
August 2005
January 2006
Image Aiguë Christiane Véricel Theatre Company 2, place des Terreaux 69001 Lyon tél. + 33 (0)4 782 774 81 fax. + 33 (0)4 720 095 41 email. image@image-aigue.org