NATCHAVShadow theatre with live music

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Show with no dialogueSuitable for all ages, from 8 years oldEstimated running time: 1 hour

Premiere on December 2nd & 3rd 2019 in Maison de la Culture de Nevers Agglomération

The Catch II, A Calder, 1932

Idea and design: Les ombres portéesPuppets and lights: 4 puppeteers (alternating)Olivier Cueto, Margot Chamberlin, Erol Gülgönen, Florence Kormann, Claire Van ZandeMusic and sound effects: 2 musicians (alternating)Séline Gülgönen (clarinets, violin, percussions), Jean Lucas (trombone, accordion, percussions), Simon Plane (trumpet, accordion, percussions)Light design: Thibault MoutinSound design: Corentin VigotCostumes: Zoé CaugantProduction: Claire Van ZandeTouring: Christelle LechatOutside eye: Christophe PagnonWith help from: Baptiste Bouquin (outside hears), Léo Maurel (sound effect machines), Jean-Yves Pénafiel (outside eye)Also thanks to: Jacques Bouault, Stéphane Relevant, Elsa Vanzande

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THE SHOW

In the darkness of the early morning, the Natchav circus arrives to town. Its caravan of trailers and lorries line up around the central square. The sledge gang begins its concert of steady blows, pounding the first stakes into the ground; the sound of the huge canvas tent flapping through the air as the poles are hoisted to the sky.

Suddenly, out of concern for security, the authorities order the circus to leave, forcing them onto a vacant lot in the outskirts of town. Following a scuffle, one of the acrobats is arrested and jailed for contempt and rebellion. So, the circus troupe, along with the other prisoners, decide to carry out a spectacular escape, one full of ingenuity and twists and turns…

Natchav - go away, run away in Rromani - recounts, through shadows and music, a story in which, on the margins of society, two fundamentally opposed worlds intertwine, that of the circus and that of the prison.

This intriguing narrative unfolds before the eyes of the audience through an extraordinary play of scenery and puppetry. In this piece with no spoken dialogue, visuals and music created and performed live guide the narration and offer an original and provocative composition between realism and fantasy.

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ARTISTIC STATEMENTNatchav tackles the notion of freedom, an idea largely diminished due to overuse, so much so as to be left devoid of meaning by a world that controls, counts and submits.

With its roots in the preservation of a lifestyle of nomadism, independence, community, movement and play, the circus invites audiences on a journey into the extraordinary, the wonderful… Time is measured in the moment. There is even an expression in circus jargon: “the point of suspension”, which describes the moment when an acrobat is free from the binds of laws, including that of gravity. In contrast, the primary purpose of prison is the deprivation of liberty: it is there to punish and confine, with all that this implies in terms of permanent constraints, lack of space, solitude, inactivity and monotony. In addition to the lack of space, there is an excess of time.

The current difficulties facing most circuses reveal a fundamental disagreement between their way of life and the societies they live in: the progressive privatisation of public space prevents these communities from setting up in towns; the increase in safety standards generates changes and costs that they cannot ensure; the growing importance of the lobby of animal protection associations forces them to cease part of their activities… Not to mention that, more generally, borders are increasingly conceived as a tool for controlling the mobility of people, whereas travel and nomadism ignore identities and states.

The freedom that these circuses defend and which we want to talk about with Natchav is a sentient and infectious idea; it is a point of origin and a perpetual movement inseparable from any being who wants to remain alive.

SCENIC DESIGN

After the traditional French Guignol booth of Pekee-nuee-nuee and the large-scale staging of the shadow theatre production of Les Somnambules, the company Les Ombres Portées continues its exploration of the world of shadow theatre with its third creation. The scenographic challenge of this show is to break the linear nature of the image-based narrative and to free the audience from the traditional frontal character of shadow theatre. The spectator’s eyes will be drawn from one direction to the next by shadows projected on a large screen, mobile sets and a dramatised display of puppeteers and musicians on stage.These interwoven narratives participate in a multi-layered theatric and scenic composition with the audience witnessing its construction and realisation live.

THE MOTION

At the back of the stage, a large cyclorama serves as a support onto which the shadows are projected. Various sets will be erected to represent the different spaces of the narration: the prison, the cells, the circus tent, the track, the streets of the city… In view of the audience, installed downstage on mobile supports, these sets and puppets projected as shadows on the screen will thus create a play of scales and a visual divergence between the image created and its source. Depending on the moment in the story, they will be brought forward, arranged and manipulated by the puppeteers. These actions will create a dramatic composition and temporal narrative in the same way as the projections.

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The aerial ballet at the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus,1963, Paul de Cordon, Instants de Cirque

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SHADOW AND LIGHT

Both of the worlds encountered in Natchav lend themselves particularly well to the technique of shadow theatre. The world of the prison is a setting of opacity, secrecy and silence. It is never revealed what really happens within the cells. The truth is hidden behind a maze of walls and bars. The shadows can reflect this dark, obscure and hidden dimension. That which will be shown of the prison will be revealed through various angles and vantages. Holes, prison bars, peepholes and cameras will all be filters giving access to the interior. On the other hand, in the dreamlike world of the circus, everything is visible: from the arrival of the caravans, the rigging of the tent, to the smallest detail of the acts themselves under the spotlight. The physical manipulation in full view of the audience will capture this raw exposure and will provoke a feeling of tension in the audience comparable to that experienced during a live circus performance.

A CINEMATOGRAPHIC MONTAGE

The treatment of the plot will be inspired in part by the narrative techniques of noir films and fiction, mixing suspense and twists and turns. Like a camera, light will serve as a guide in the narration, offering spectators a myriad of points of view: subjective (from the trapeze artist who sees the audience spinning upside down to the prisoner who sees the outside through his cell bars) or objective but unconventional (from the wheels of the circus caravans to the aerial view of the prison). Panning shots, zooms and cuts rhyme with the narration and create a dynamic reading of the story like a film shot live with multiple cameras.

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LIVE MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT

The music, played on stage live and in full view by two multi-instrumentalists, will feature original compositions, musical improvisation and sound effects. The musical score will be inspired in part by circus music motifs, while giving them a cinematographic tone. As with live film concerts, the music will actively participate in the narration and will highlight or create tensions and surprises.

The work of a luthier will make it possible to design remarkable and unique instruments and sound effects, which will constitute the acoustic counterpart to the visual devices.

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Scenic design research

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Pages 8-9: rehearsals photos

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SOURCES AND INSPIRATIONS

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LEGEND

1. The Cirque Amar at Porte de St Cloud (Paris) in June 1929, the Vesque Sisters

2. Breaking Down the Grand Cirque de France During the Night, 1963, Paul de Cordon, Instants de Cirque3. Preparing to Raise the Big Top at Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1902, Mc Caddon Collection,Theatre

Collection, Princeton University Library

4. Snyder Bros Circus and Wild West, poster, 1931

5. The Brass Family, brass wire, 1929, Alexander

Calder

6. Un passage des Palacios, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Palais des Sports, Paris,

1963, Paul de Cordon, Instants de Cirque7. Dungeon, anonymous

8. Prison watchtower, Getty Images

9. Newgate Prison Courtyard, Gustave Doré, 1872

10. Illustration for the newspaper L’Envolée, Erol

Gülgönen

11. Inside H Block 4, Still Burning, 2005

REFERENCESBIBLIOGRAPHY

Dictionnaire de la langue du cirque, Agnès Pierron, Éditions Stock, 2003Architectures du Cirque : Des origines à nos jours, Christian Dupavillon, Éditions du Moniteur, 2001La tente et le chapiteau, Christian Dupavillon, Éditions Norma, 2004Les Baltringues, Ludovic Roubaudi, Éditions la Dilettante, 2002The Circus Book:1870s-1950s, Noel Daniel et al, Taschen, 2010En piste ! Le Cirque en images des soeurs Vesque, Bernadette Boustany, Gallimard Jeunesse, 1992Le cirque en images, Marthe and Juliette Vesque, GP Maisonneuve & Larose, 1977Une vie de cirque, Jérôme Medrano, Éditions Arthaud, 1983Traité du funambulisme, Philippe Petit, 1997La fabuleuse histoire du cirque, Pascal Jacob, 2002Fête foraine et lutte finale, Marcel Campion, Sep 2017Au pied du mur, Éditions de l’Insomniaque, 2000No Beast So Fierce, Edward Bunker, 1973L’Envolée, Serge Coutel, 1985Un jardin à la cour, Hafed Benotman, 2016Révolte à perpétuité, Daniel Koehl, 2002Soledad Brother, George Jackson, 1970Bruno Sulak, Pauline Sulak, Éditions Carrère 1985Monstres en cavale, Cloé Mehdi, Éditions Le Masque, 2014A ceux qui se croient libres, Nadia Ménenger, Éditions de l’Insomniaque, 2009

FILMOGRAPHY

Man on a Tightrope, Elia Kazan, 1953The Circus, Charlie Chaplin, 1969Freaks, Tod Browning, 1932Parade, Jacques Tati, 1974People Who Travel, Jacques Feyder, 1938Planète cirque, D Auclair and L Chevallier, documentary series, 1992–1993Calder’s Circus, Carlos Vilardebo, 1961I clowns, F Fellini, 1971Sawdust and Tinsel, I Bergman, 1953Runaway Train, Konchalovsky, 1985The Hole, Jacques Becker, 1960Animal Factory, Steve Buscemi, 2000Ombline, Stéphane Cazes, 2012Down by Law, Jim Jarmusch, 1986A Man Escaped, Robert Bresson, 1956Freedom for Us, René Clair, 1931Starred Up, David Mackenzie, 2014

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Created in 2009, Les Ombres Portées is a company that brings together people from different backgrounds: music, scenography, construction, drawing, photography… Composed of five core artists and technicians, it works together with up to ten collaborators depending on the project. It creates shadow theatre performances accompanied by live music in lieu of spoken dialogue. The company also develops scenographic and musical projects and conducts many workshops. Approaching its work in a collective manner, the company attaches great importance to the time needed for projects to emerge, as well as to meetings and exchanges with audiences.

THE COMPANY Its first show, Pekee-nuee-nuee, for ages 5+, is a dreamlike show about the marine world. It premiered at the Festival Excentrique in 2011 and was awarded the Paris Jeunes Talents 2011 Prize (142 performances in France, Switzerland and Germany).

Les Somnambules is a show for the general public from ages 7+, co-produced and created for the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières in September 2015. It is a shadow production staged on a spectacular model, which tells the story of the re-appropriation of cities by their inhabitants (116 performances in France, the Netherlands, South Korea).

Natchav is the company’s third creation.

Page 14: The greatest stars of the circus’s legendary flying trapeze act, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus, 1935

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Page 15: Bird Millman, Chicago, 1922

Production: Claire Van Zandecompagnie@lesombresportees.frPhone: +33 (0)6 59 42 66 93

Touring: Christelle Lechatdiffusion@lesombresportees.frPhone: +33 (0)6 14 39 55 10

CONTACTS

CREATION SCHEDULE

SUPPORT

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Co-production :Maison de la Culture de Nevers Agglomération • La Minoterie, Dijon • Le Théâtre, scène conventionnée de Laval • Théâtre-Sénart, scène nationale • TJP, CDN Strasbourg - Grand Est

Artist-in-residence programmes and assistance:Espace Périphérique - Mairie de Paris - Parc de la Villette • Festival Momix et le CREA, scène conventionnée Jeune Public d’Alsace, Kingersheim • La Fabrique, Messeugne • La Ferme du Buisson, scène nationale de Marne-la-Vallée • La Fonderie, Le Mans • La Maison des Enfants du Quercy, Le Bouyssou • Le TANDEM, scène nationale, Arras-Douai • Le Tas de Sable, Amiens • MA scène nationale, Montbéliard • Théâtre La Licorne, Dunkerque

Funding:Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - DRAC Île-de-France

Compagnie Les ombres portées7 rue Saint-Luc75018 ParisFRANCE

www.lesombresportees.fr

2017 - 2018: script writing, storyboard, stage design research, construction of prototypes for puppets and sets2018 - 2019: construction of puppets and sets2019: musical composition, rehearsals, light and sound design

Premiere on December 2nd & 3rd 2019 in Maison de la Culture de Nevers Agglomération (France)