Comic gestual duet.
The Company’s Approach
The body is a powerful vehicle to convey emotions. Our conception of theatre focuses on bodies which tell much without the need for a text.
The theatre we create is shaped by images. We give great importance to the aesthetical value of the stage.
We want laughter to be present all the time so that the tragic can be absorbed more easily.
We place importance on the present moment, on being genuine, here and now so as not to fall into the trap of mechanical performance.
The characters we create are close to us so that we can connect to sincerity on the stage. The clown, in the background of all our performances, does not wear a nose, thus allowing the audience to identify more strongly and open their imaginary. Simply making people laugh at our faults, our moments of unease, our fantasies and solitude.
We like to observe and allow ourselves to be touched by the beauty emanating from ordinary, everyday life. Through observation we can thus create a precise, realistic framework and then deconstruct it and step into the absurd which is for us a necessary twist in order to put things into perspective.
The scenography and narrative are meant to suggest not to illustrate. Our spectacles are created by a context, not a story, and aim at simplicity in order to provide easier access to the imaginary. Emotion and poetry are engendered by a minimalist arrangement. Saying more by describing less.
We base our work on long, slow, gradual sequences which require our full commitment and offer richer possibilities of acting while giving a greater part to improvisation. These sequences create a void which is deeply moving. This is where we become connected to our deep nature. It is the elegance of little nothings, of the ordinary and of soulful silences.
We are searching for the quirky achievement, insignificant but highly technical so that the ordinary may give rise to the extraordinary.
Thus our performances are resolutely inscribed in the vein of the circus arts through our physical work and our narrative.
Brian Henninot
Lunar juggler
Chamber accordionist
Tall but good-natured
Lethargic relaxed gangly
Prematurely born, Brian started life as a tiny baby. In order to survive he made up his mind to become the tallest and strongest in the world.
Already as a small child he was so serious that other people laughed at him. When he was a little older he found out that the taller and stronger he became, the more people laughed at him, particularly when he tried to be the best. So he entered a college specializing in mathematics.
As he grew further he took up juggling—now, that’s serious business. So he started professional training at the circus school in Lyons, France. As he entered adulthood he decided to become a child again by attending a school for clowns, the Samovar, in a Paris suburb.
When he reached his adult size, he became schizophrenic and fed exclusively on madeleine biscuits. He was then able to achieve personal fulfillment and become the funniest of serious people...
All by himself, he made up a character who did not actually resemble him but moved in a very strange way. He then started working with strange people who were totally unlike him.
Clémence Rouzier
Acrobat rooted in earth
Lounge trumpet player
Little but strong
Dynamic vigorous stocky
Clemence was small as a child and will remain thus all her life. As a small child she used to hide behind the teacher’s desk and observe the others. She then decided that was what she liked and she no longer wanted to get taller. Nevertheless she added a few inches to her size by drinking five liters a day of magic potion.
As firmly rooted as a hippopotamus thanks to her gravity center a mere 70 cm above the ground, she took up gymnastics. That was all right, however, it lacked poetry, so she went on practising but in circus schools, like the one in Montpellier, France, or Tilburg, in the Netherlands.
As what she learnt seemed to her a little too sophisticated, she realized it had been better in nursery school. So she headed to the school for clowns, the Samovar, in order to start all over again. A partner not exactly her size, that’s quite a big task for such a small person.
Direction: Johan Lescop
As a child he showed a marked taste for games involving all sorts of balls and balloons, which after his teenage years, led him to juggling. Keen to learn more about it as well as share it, he attended a Beatep training course, involving voice and body, at the Theatre of the Movement. His questioning of the actor’s presence, continuously fed by his taste for play, led him to train as a clown.
He started out as a street performer by joining the Inko’nito company and performed five years with them. Then came other projects in which he kept mixing juggling and clown skills.
He began intervening in 2000 in the Circus School in Lyon, France, which made him take a keener look at his work. He adapted his clown skills to the circus performer’s work, accompanying the students in the elaboration of their acts. He is now an artistic adviser for professional training. He helps develop artistic projects and direct the shows of companies like Prise de Pied, Toi d’abord, Fénix, Dis bonjour à la dame, Lapsus... Les GüMs.
Production / Booking: Juliette Vaintan