Maxime Kurvers
Dictionnaire de la musique
Conceived and directed by Maxime Kurvers
With Julien Geffroy, Maxime Kurvers, Thomas Laigle, Manon Lauriol, Caroline Menon-Bertheux, Claire Rappin, and Charles Zévaco, assisted by Daphné Biiga Nwanak
A La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers production // A ©18.03/71 coproduction ; La Ménagerie de Verre (Paris) ; Festival d’Automne à Paris // In association with La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers ; Festival d’Automne à Paris // With artistic participation from the Jeune Théâtre National // With support from Adami // Maxime Kurvers is an associate artist at the Ménagerie de Verre during the 2016-2017 season and at La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers from September 2016 onwards.
Maxime Kurver’s point of departure is a “dictionary of music”. Thousands of entries, in other words, classified in alphabetical order with the stated aim of listing what musical art is, in all its various forms. Taking in composers, styles, forms, motifs and the like, the range of notions covered is extensive. Indeed, it brings into play issues that are not just technical, but which are also related to culture and aesthetics. The challenge which the Dictionnaire de la musique actors have set themselves is none other than to play out this dictionary in real time and in the very real space of a theatre stage.
Given the unfeasibility of an exhaustive approach, what the performers seek to do onstage is to establish their own inventory of this medium. Thus, they turn to the performing, or performance, of certain aspects of it, incorporating the definitions into their own reality, thereby creating an array of miniature possibles of thought in construction. The idea meets the body, and the polyphonic reality of the actors brings into opposition the concept with its questions: how can the theatrical space match up to the abstract nature of a dictionary? In what respect is a - musical - idea a reducible one? How can we produce thought in the arena of the spectacular?
Dictionnaire de la musique plays upon the idea of the encyclopedia in order to break away from it. In this way, the stage becomes an extra-musical laboratory. Maxime Kurvers invites us to reflect upon theatre and, in the wider sense, art and its links with thought. Via the unique figure of transposition, his dictionary thus becomes not just a musical score, but also a physical and theatre-based one.
In the same place
Carte Blanche Dream City
The multi-disciplinary Tunisian festival Dream City is moving to Aubervilliers at the joint invitation of the Festival d'Automne and La Commune, with the shared desire to make this area rustle, resonate and dream through a dozen creations by international performing and visual artists.
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi BIRD
Starting with ordinary everyday gestures such as feeding, living together and getting around, Sofiane Ouissi explores our relationship with birds. Passionate about encounters and the journeys they generate, this time he delves into the relationship with another species.
Conference by Sophie Bessis Tunisia in the turmoil of populism
After a decade of chaotic but richly experienced democratic apprenticeship, Tunisia found itself plunged into a new cycle of its post-colonial history from 2021 onwards. From that date onwards, Kaïs Saïed, who was democratically elected in 2019, assumed all the powers, transforming a fledgling democracy into an autocracy.
Visual arts: exhibitions and conversations
Artists Jumana Manna and Sille Storihle, Manthia Diawara, Michael Rakowitz & Robert Chase Heishmans will be in La Commune from 20 to 28 September to present five works and invite you to take part in two conversations.
The works of Nil Yalter will be on display in the public space of Aubervilliers.
Sammy Baloji Missa Utica
The first black bishop appointed by the Catholic Church should have settled in Utica, Tunisia, but never did. His story is the starting point for Sammy Baloji's work.
Winter Family H2-Hébron
Winter Family is an experimental music and documentary theatre duo founded by Israeli artist Ruth Rosenthal and French musician Xavier Klaine. They play minimal, obsessive, abrasive and political music. They created H2 Hebron, their 3rd show in 2018, a documentary piece in which the transcription of nearly 500 pages of testimonies, their translation, selection and reappropriation by Winter Family are the central element and the main dramaturgical material of the show.
Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué Biokhraphia
These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia et Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.
Rabih Mroué Riding on a cloud
These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia and Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.