Gisèle Vienne / Dennis Cooper / Puppentheater Halle
The Ventriloquists Convention
© Seth Walentowski, Vent Haven Convention 2014 © Estelle Hanania ©
Conception, direction and scenography, Gisèle Vienne
Text, Dennis Cooper, in collaboration with the performers
Music, KTL, Stephen O’Malley et Peter Rehberg
Lighting, Patrick Riou
Created and performed by Jonathan Capdevielle, Kerstin Daley-Baradel, Uta Gebert, Vincent Göhre
and performers from Puppentheater Halle, Nils Dreschke, Sebastian Fortak, Lars Frank, Ines Heinrich-Frank, Katharina Kummer
A Puppentheater Halle (DE) production ; DACM // In coproduction with Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national ; Festival d’Automne à Paris ; Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou ; Centre Dramatique National Orléans-Loiret-Centre ; Le TJP – Centre Dramatique National d’Alsace – Strasbourg ; Le Maillon – Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scène européenne ; La Bâtie – Festival de Genève ; Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel Hambourg ; Kaserne – Basel ; Le Parvis – Scène nationale de Tarbes-Pyrénées ; Theater Freiburg ; Bonlieu Scène nationale d’Annecy ; hTh CDN Montpellier ; Fidena festival – Bochum // In partnership with Nanterre-Amandiers, centre dramatique national ; Les Spectacles vivants – Centre Pompidou ; Festival d’Automne à Paris // With support from Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Pro Halle e.V., Saalesparkasse, Bureau du théâtre et de la danse – Institut Français d’Allemagne, Fachausschuss Tanz und Theater Basel-Stadt / Basel-Landschaft , Institut Français as part of « Théâtre export », les Services Culturels de l’Ambassade de France in New-York // With assistance from the Bureau théâtre et danse – Institut Français d’Allemagne and the Beaumarchais-SACD Paris association as part of the production aid programme // This show is part of the Parcours d’auteurs cultural and artistic education programme, a joint initiative between the Festival d’Automne and the SACD // With support from Adami // With support from ONDA // In conjunction with the Goethe-Institut Paris
First performance on 9 July 2015 at Puppentheater Halle (DE) / Puschkinhaus
Since her appearance on the “choreographic” scene, Gisèle Vienne has blurred all possible boundaries, unceasingly. With her multiple creative talents, and training in philosophy, music and puppetry, Gisèle Vienne invents worlds apart in which jumping jacks rub shoulders with figure skaters, and performers with writers. Her photographic eye enables her to seize upon disturbing images, such as the doll-like figures which haunt her works. In The Ventriloquists Convention Gisèle Vienne renews her collaboration with American writer Dennis Cooper, with whom she created I Apologize and Jerk. This time around, it will be about the real will be rubbing up against the fictional: each year, in Vent Haven, Kentucky, an event is organized during which ventriloquists from the world over gather. They constitute a somewhat unique family, brought together through a “specialist, even suspect” shared interest and desire to celebrate. Gisèle Vienne and Dennis Cooper built up the score for the show on the basis of documentary and fictional sources: “using this material as a starting point, the work developed into a free-form reconstitution”. Why do ventriloquists do what they do? What lies behind their masks? Performed by nine ventriloquists-cum-puppeteers (giving rise to twenty-seven voices alone) the piece hinges on the use of multi-layered dialogues, including a third, ghostly, non-physical means voice. These portraits enable Gisèle Vienne to continue her full-scale research into body-voice relationships, “via the interplay between incarnation and dissociation”. With the combined presences of Jonathan Capedevielle, Uta Gebert and the puppeteers of the Puppentheater de Halle, The Ventriloquists Convention finds its own way of looking into the issue of gender, be it human or otherwise.
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