Dans les plis du paysage

Piece for seven jugglers and a drummer
First performed for the Lyon Dance Biennial 2016

The Collectif Petit Travers started out on this long journey over 10 years ago…
In 2006, with the creation of Pan-pot ou modérément chantant the foundation for a new form of juggling appeared. Since then, in an inventive spirit closely tied to musical expression – the antithesis of a style that is performative and overly spectacular – Nicolas Mathis, Julien Clément and the jugglers of the Collectif Petit Travers, tireless explorers of the stage, have never ceased to travel through an ever-larger territory, in search of virtuosity and a graphic style.

In 2016, Dans les plis du paysage brought this vast cycle of encounters to a poetic conclusion.

In this tribal group show, with finely honed texts, where the spirit of magic once again roams, the spectators accompany the performers through landscapes of singular beauty.

Intentions

« We can come to understand an Other from his or her form, energy or motivations, becoming bound up in their misguided ways or even by manipulation.
We can coexist, we can observe each other.
We can also look for a common vision that we can share.
In a dreamlike space, a group of individuals forge surprising relationships. This group of people anchored in their own reality find themselves embroiled in the movements of the world around them. The space is divided into sections ; some are empty, some hide a character, spit forth balls, color a garment, move…

The show unfolds before our very eyes in a world of scattered movements and as it develops all trappings disappear from the space, but the crowd gets bigger and new participants abound.

By arranging different situations, with choreographic poems and mysterious machinery, we want to take the spectators on a perceptual journey that questions life with others, a journey thaht would create the physical desire to join those who are playing and dancing before them.”

Distribution

Collective creation prepared and directed by : Julien Clément et Nicolas Mathis
Co-authors and interpretation : Martin Barré, Julien Clément, Rémi Darbois, Juliette Hulot, Nicolas Mathis, Marie Papon, Clément Plantevin
Drums : Pierre Pollet
Artistic Consultant : Mary Chebbah
Scenographic design and production : Olivier Filipucci and Thibault Thelleire
Lighting design : Alix Veillon
Costumes : Emilie Piat
Technical Director / General Stage Management : Olivier Filippucci and Thibault Thelleire
Production direction and diffusion : David Michelis
Production administration : Marie Maubert
With thanks to Mié Coquempot and Paul Changarnier

Teaser - Dans les plis du paysage

Creation : 2016

Duration : 2:10

Images - Dans les plis du paysage

Press review

17th Dance Biennial : Crossroads

The Collectif Petit Travers also amazed us. Dans les plis du paysage, which distantly evokes La Vie dans les plis by Henri Michaux, is a technical performance, whilst that is not its goal. The last part of a triptych, started with Pan-Pot, this new creation, which features the ball as a projectile and of course its trajectories and speeds, does not completely eliminate the juggler, but gives him a secondary role. He is part of a group which tosses the ball back and forth, lets it fall or throws it on both sides of the stage. The projectile is then like a musical note for a common score and a graphic object. In their orange hooded anoraks, the jugglers are launchers who appear and disappear, graffiti artists of a changing landscape.
DÉLIBÉRÉ 25•09•2016
Petit Travers, big surprise

The artists from Lyon are really outdoing themselves this year. After the Lyon Opera Ballet, the Collectif Petit Travers took their turn in distributing positive vibes. It is an understatement to say that these jugglers, unlike others, are taking unchartered paths in new circus arts. They throw balls at each other through a maze of curtains, they catch them, sometimes miss them : it could seem simplistic, but it is ingenious and surprising.

A ballet of snowflakes nuanced by the effects of speed and light.

But above all, their projectiles have the art of sketching aerial harmonies, like a ballet of flakes nuanced by the effects of speed, light, and the graphic lines of their trajectories. There are fast bullets, furious ones, soft ones, treacherous ones… A whole subtle battery of sounds and amplitudes in suspension.
TRIBUNE DE LYON 14•09•2016
Dance : a circus flight

[…] The individual as a landscape

As part of the Biennial, the premiere of Dans les plis du paysage (third part of a trilogy on the individual as a landscape) by the Collectif Petit Travers a the Toboggan in Décines. The juggling practiced by these artists accepts the unforeseen at the very heart of its greatly rigorous art. And thus, invents a new form of poetry : stunning, insolent, full of suspense and surprises.

Without words, without even an obvious story, this is nevertheless really theatre, a theatre which draws its strength and freshness from the articulation of the juggling, an artistic language among the others : music, dance, light, scenography.

Seven jugglers, a musician and dozens of white balls inhabit a changing space, at times empty and other times full, alternating between incredibly percussive power and ethereal medieval songs. Contractions, contrasts, contradictions – serious/comical, heavy/light, appearance/disappearance – and strong sensations for a performance which is intellectually ambitious and yet well-adapted for all audiences. A heart-stopper that we would like to see again closer to home.
LA LIBRE BE 21•09•2016

Artistic residence in the "Maison de la Danse"

Report in the "Maison de la Danse".
Interview Nicolas Mathis and Julien Clément.
Artistic residence from 17 to 27 february 2016

Creation : 2016

Duration : 6:39

Production : Collectif Petit Travers

Co-production and artistic residence for the creation : Lyon Dance Biennial 2016 / Manège – Reims National Theatre / Plateforme 2 Circus Centre of Normandie, La Brèche in Cherbourg – Cirque Théâtre in Elbeuf / L’Agora, National Centre for Circus Arts Boulazac Aquitaine, in partnership with the Odyssée, National Registered Theater Périgueux / Le Dôme Théâtre – Albertville / Scène Nationale 61, Théâtre of Alençon / National Choreography Centre in Rillieux-la-Pape, direction Yuval Pick / Théâtre du Vellein, CAPI / CiRCa, National Circus Centre, Auch Gers Occitanie / Groupe des 20 – Public Stages Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

Funding Support and residences : Maison de la Danse de Lyon / Théâtre de Cusset, National Registered Circus Theatre of Auvergne / La Cascade, National Circus Arts Centre in Bourg Saint Andéol / Les Subsistances, 2015-16, France / Le Grand Angle – Regional Theater, Pays voironnais / National Theater of Orléans

Supported by : funding for circus and street arts from the General Directorate of Artistic Creation, Ministry of Culture and Communication / DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes / Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council / SPEDIDAM – creation support (role reprise and scenography adaptation)

First performed at the Lyon Dance Biennial 2016