Nos matins intérieurs
In collaboration with the Debussy String Quartet
Note of Intent
Which paths originate within us to later intersect with others and the world ? How can we come together without sacrificing individuality ? What is it about our art that both isolates us and profoundly embeds us at the heart of this world ?
In a labyrinth of individual paths composed of outbursts and patience, some of us are playing the same music, one that is both intimate and universal. Revealing ourselves a little and merging into the collective movement to present a world of games, relationships, mischief, and lyricism, of music and dance. We, jugglers and musicians, are as much a part of the landscape as the surprises nestled within it. We offer you our energy along with the desires that propel us forward.
The Music
This music emerges from the collaboration with the Quatuor Debussy. It’s a music that touches and moves us, propelling and harmonizing our gestures. The musicians master time, dictating rhythms, tempos, and duration. They serve as witnesses to our dances, inviting us all to become voyeurs of our choreographic games, relishing the tensions and flashes of movement. They inhabit our world, observing it and ensuring that it is both seen and heard.
We have built our musical repertoire on the compositions of two composers born three centuries apart : the baroque fantasies of Henry Purcell engage in a dialogue with the contemporary repetitive romanticism of Marc Mellits.
Purcell’s ancient music calls on our historical memory, drawing its emotion from the roots of European culture and deeply resonating with us, establishing a direct connection with our sensitivity and auditory perception. This music encompasses a wide variety of forms and tempos. Built on imitative figures, it serves as the foundation for an architecture upon which our collective compositions are built.
In contrast, Marc Mellits’ music for quartet is influenced by popular culture and repetitive rock, while also offering a precise and rich rhythmic treatment. It is a music that defines spaces, moving the sound from one performer to another, akin to passing our balls to each other—an inherent conversation with juggling. This material, rich in emotion, presents a sonic universe somewhere between melancholy and raw energy. It supports and accompanies spoken words and the emergence of the unique individualities of each juggler.
Telling one’s story to invent one’s place in the world
For the first time in the company’s history, it is through speech that each character expresses their irreducible singularity on stage—a first step towards self-discovery, a first step towards connecting with others. From the pen of the artist and author Jean-Charles Massera, adept of a generalized tinkering with ordinary language, gradually emerges a mosaic of moments where the intimate is unveiled, bursts of individual thoughts that shape our existences. As a counterpoint, to pursue a musical metaphor, each performer begins playing in the void of the others, and something common begins to take shape.
The striking charm of banality and tenderness accompanies our absurd moments. In an economy of words, he skillfully connects identities, revealing each individual’s journey towards the universal, unfolding a collective narrative before our eyes. With an incredibly light touch, he conveys this tragic observation: it is from my sense of uniqueness that I am confronted with the necessity of working with others.
A Modular Space, a Space for Play
The stage is organized around the presence of 28 cubes, arranged to create and unmake all kinds of evocative spaces, shaping the relationships between different characters. At times symbolizing the theater space or context, at others a rocky mountain, a dividing border, or a bed of chairs that brings together, these movable and nestable masses, reminiscent of a child’s toy, are manipulated by the jugglers and musicians.
These playful and evocative transformations of the space unfold as the performance progresses, under the watchful gaze of the spectator. Each new situation reveals new relationships of play, new modes of interaction between music and juggling, between time and space, between presence and passing time.
Constructing a space to hide, building one to reveal oneself, to separate or unite, constructing a space for play, for surprise, or conversely, one that is bare where everything is visible. Once again, we aimed to create the broadest possible palette to lay out the life of our poetic community. Thus, from principles that are simple and easy to observe, the mystery of the living emerges.
Cast
Writers: Julien Clément and Nicolas Mathis
Mise en scene: Nicolas Mathis
Text and artist direction: Jean-Charles Massera
Musical Direction: Christophe Collette
With the musicians of the Quatuor Debussy
With the jugglers of the Collectif Petit Travers: Eyal Bor, Julien Clément, Rémi Darbois, Amélie Degrande, Bastien Dugas, Alexander Koblikov, Taichi Kotsuji, Carla Kühne, Emmanuel Ritoux, and Anna Suraniti
Music: Henry Purcell and Marc Mellits
Lighting design: Arno Veyrat
Costumes: Léonor Boyot Gellibert
Speech Laboratory: Stéphane Bonnard
Set Design: Olivier Filipucci
Technical and Lighting Management: François Dareys or Thibault Thelleire
Sound Management: Victor Page or Eric Dutrievoz
Directorial Collaboration: Dorothée Alemany
Production director: Anna Delaval
Logistics: Audrey Paquereau
Technical Coordination: Samuel Wilmotte
Production Administration: Géraldine Winckler
TEASER Nos matins intérieurs
Creation :
Duration : 2:13
SUPPORT
Production : Collectif Petit Travers, in complicity of the Debussy String Quartet
Co-production and artistic residence : Maison de la Danse, Pôle européen de création, Lyon ; La Biennale de Lyon ; Le Carré Magique, Pôle National Cirque en Bretagne ; Agora – Pôle National Cirque Boulazac – Nouvelle Aquitaine ; Plateforme 2 Pôles Cirque I La Brèche à Cherbourg et Le Cirque Théâtre d’Elbeuf ; Le Sirque, Pôle National des Arts du Cirque Nexon Nouvelle Aquitaine
Co-production : Initiative d’artistes / La Villette, Paris ; La Cité Bleue, Genève ; Théâtre de Saint Quentin en Yvelines, Scène nationale ; Le Carreau, Scène nationale de Forbach et de l’Est mosellan ; La Rampe-La Ponatière, scène conventionnée danse et musique, Echirolles
Artistic residence : Circa, Pôle National Cirque Auch Gers Occitanie ; Théâtre de Privas – Scène conventionnée · Art en Territoire · Centre Ardèche ; Théâtre National Populaire, Villeurbanne.
Supported by SPEDIDAM, Centre national de la musique, the city of Villeurbanne and the Jeune Cirque National professional integration assistance system.
Collectif Petit Travers is supported by funding from the Ministry of Culture (DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes) and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council.
Quatuor Debussy is supported by funding from the Ministry of Culture (DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes), the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regional Council and the City of Lyon. It is equally supported by the Lyon Metropolis, the SPEDIDAM and SG Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.