Ex Machina / Robert Lepage
887
© © Érick Labbé ©
© Erick Labbé ©
© Erick Labbé ©
Written, directed and performed by , Robert Lepage
Creative Director, Steve Blanchet
Dramaturgy, Peder Bjurman
Assistant Director, Adèle Saint-Amand
Composer and Sound Designer , Jean-Sébastien Côté
Lighting Designer, Laurent Routhier
Image Designer, Félix Fradet-Faguy
Associate Set Designer, Sylvain Décarie
Associate Properties Designer , Ariane Sauvé
Associate Costumes Designer, Jeanne Lapierre
An Ex Machina production, commissioned by the Arts and Culture Programme of the TORONTO 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games // In coproduction with le lieu unique, Nantes ; La Comète – Scène nationale de Châlons-en-Champagne ; Edinburgh International Festival ; Théâtre de la Ville-Paris ; Festival d'Automne à Paris ; Romaeuropa Festival 2015 ; Bonlieu Scène nationale d’Annecy ; Célestins, Théâtre de Lyon ; Le Théâtre français du Centre national des Arts d’Ottawa ; Le Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Montreal ; Programmes culturels SFU, à l’occasion du 50e anniversaire de l'Université Simon Fraser, Vancouver // Associate producer Europe, Japon, Epidemic – Richard Castelli // Producer for Ex Machina, Michel Bernatchez // In partnership with Théâtre de la Ville-Paris ; Festival d’Automne à Paris // Funded by Canada Council for the Arts, Quebec's Arts and Literature Council and the City of Quebec.
In association with France Inter
After a run of shows of a more spectacular nature (La trilogie des dragons, the Jeux de Cartes project and various collaborations with Cirque du Soleil), this latest work sees a return, by Robert Lepage, to the “solo work” format, in an exploration into the workings of memory. 887 may well be about the summoning up of personal recollections, but this does not make it an autobiographical tale. Anecdotes and historical considerations of a more wide-ranging nature invariably find themselves becoming interwound. The 1960’s. Quebec. Montreal. 887 boulevard Murray. From within this block of flats, the mirror of a society at the dawn of major upheavals, young Robert discovers theatre for the first time, in the course of games invented with his sister. In the background is the muted sound of the Quebec Liberation Front’s first bombs going off. We enter into this building via the window, surreptitiously, just as we might break into a person’s mind. The stage topography is of both the mental and geographic kind, and transforms itself in time with mysterious synaptic connections. Robert Lepage is a groundbreaking teller of stories. His ubiquitous brand of theatre rises above frontiers of all kinds, spatial or temporal. One distance it does, however, keep to is that of the tender, ironic detachment afforded by the passing of the years. What is left in suspense is what makes 887 an intimate work. It is an ode less to the mother country and its “Je me souviens” or “I remember” motto - than to the father’s silence. And to the art of the actor, a craft in which memory is the cornerstone.
In the same place
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5 Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione
In collaboration with the choreographer and dancer Radouan Mriziga, the challenge taken up by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker is to make Vivaldi's Four Seasons heard, using the tools of dance to hone the way we listen to this baroque masterpiece. Under the auspices of abstraction, the resulting alliance reconnects with the imaginary ecological world that is conjured up by this famous concerto.
Rabih Mroué Who’s Afraid of Representation?
We find ourselves in the company of major figures of European Body Art (Joseph Beuys, Orlan, Marina Abramović, to name a few) via their accounts of exhibitions and public scarifications dating back to the 1970s. In parallel with this runs the true story of a killing spree carried out by a Lebanese office at his workplace, and the fluctuating motivations for his acts.
Lola Arias Los días afuera
At the crossroads between musical and documentary, Lola Arias brings us a choral composition in which six female former inmates talk about their lives during and after incarceration. Their six intertwining destinies raise questions about the various forms of violence present in contemporary society, whilst exploring the margins of fiction and reality at the same time.
Robert Wilson PESSOA – Since I've been me
The hero of this new work by Robert Wilson is Fernando Pessoa. And a paradoxical hero at that. The Portuguese poet spent his life 'multiplying himself', inventing heteronyms, or fictitious authors, to whom he attributed works he himself wrote. He even went as far as to invent relationships, either amicable ones or from master to disciple, between his different avatars.
Jan Martens VOICE NOISE
In this breakthrough piece for Jan Martens, VOICE NOISE brings together six dancers to shape a soundscape comprising some of the great female performers and composers of our time. In his own pop-inspired and precise way, the choreographer questions a very contemporary story, and in doing so raises the question of how some of these voices were silenced.