SISYPHOLIA
Performance in urban spaces
Premiere at Biennale Internationale des Arts Vivants Toulouse Occitanie. October 5th and 8th 2022
The Sisypholia project will develop on several poles of actions:
– Performance in the public space
– Workshop meeting with teenagers or young adults around the themes of the project
– Diffusion on social networks of performances and images of workshop, reflection around the communication.
Performance Sisypholia
This is a performance project that consists in evoking a mythical figure in urban consumer spaces to create a poetic disruption in a commercial movement.
Starting point
We wanted to talk about our daily desires of consumption.
We looked for an access that would allow us to approach this theme without placing ourselves in a moralistic position or a role of lesson giver.
The shopping streets are always bustling with people. Potential buyers are moving towards different goals, but with a common rhythm.
As aware as we may be of the futile nature of this frenetic desire, we will inevitably end up back on the path of the « potential buyer ».
A desire that balances between pleasure and guilt.
Who can avoid it completely?
Everyone is part of this crowd.
Freely inspired by the myth of Sisyphus, we have imagined a strange puppet figure who will embark on an absurd and repetitive quest, within an environment unsuited to his approach in order to create a slight disturbance. An image with a free interpretation that blurs the tracks of understanding, but will create a blank, a pause, a disturbance of meaning in a daily crowd movement.
It is not a question of falling into caricature, nor aggression.
Rather, we hope to create a chaotic and disproportionate object that would be a kind of ironic creator of chaos capable of extracting us from the compulsive rhythm of our society.
Sisyphus
« The gods had condemned Sisyphus to roll a rock endlessly to the top of a mountain from which the stone fell back by its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no punishment more terrible than useless and hopeless work. At the end of this long effort measured by the space without sky and the time without depth, the goal is reached. Sisyphus then watches the stone slide down in a few moments towards this lower world from where it will have to be raised towards the summits. He goes back down to the plain. »
The myth of Sisyphus. Camus
The main scenographic object of Sisypholia is a giant ball of clothes that is rolled down a shopping street or shopping mall by an everyday Sisyphus, who looks like everyone else.
Our Sisyphus will roll this giant ball of clothes down one or more streets, until he reaches a point where the ball returns to the starting point. Sisyphus, fully aware of the absurdity of his effort, will start the same task again and again, without hope or intention of transcendence, with discipline and vitality. And just like Camus’ Sisyphus, he is happy to accept this reality, in a perfectly absurd way.
We are thinking of a working stage during which we will be able to invest the places where the performances will take place, in order to be able to define the paths, the routes and the movements. From there, we can imagine a journey that repeats itself in a loop, with strange stops for improbable reasons.
Cast & credits
Director Natacha Belova and Dorian Chavez
Outside eye Nicole Mossoux and Tita Iacobelli
Design of the ball Natacha Belova
Realization of the ball Nathalie Trouve, Atelier Théâtre de la Cité
Interpretation Dorian Chavez
Production IFO asbl
Coproduction Biennale Internationale des Arts Vivants Toulouse Occitanie, Théâtre de la Cité, Usine, Arto, Marionnettissimo, Théâtre National de Bruxelles, Festival Namur en mai
Collaboration with achACT – Actions Consommateurs Travailleurs
We thank the asbl Terre à Liège (Herstal) for the clothes around the ball.
Tours
2024
29 November : Louvain-la-Neuve in collaboration with Ach’ACT (Belgium)
Past Dates
2024
13 September : Brussels in collaboration with ECLOSIO (Belgium)
4 September : Liège (Belgium)
9 May : Festival Sortilèges, Rue & Vous!, Ath (Belgium)
27 April : Fair Fashion Festival de Gand, Ghent (Belgium)
23 February : Les Brigittines, Brussels (Belgium)
2023
19-20 May : Festival Namur en mai (Belgium)
16-17 May : Théâtre Pannon Várszínház, Veszprém (Hungary)
April 2023 : Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles (Belgium)
2022
5 and 8 October : Premiere à la Biennale Internationale des Arts Vivants Toulouse Occitanie (France)
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CONTACT
With
Wallonie-Bruxelles Théâtre Danse