Rosana Cade, Ivor MacAskill
The Making of Pinocchio
novembernov 22 – 30
Friday november 22
19h30
Saturday november 23
18h30
Sunday november 24
15h30
Tuesday november 26
19h30
Wednesday november 27
19h30
Thursday november 28
19h30
Friday november 29
19h30
Saturday november 30
16h30
Created by Rosana Cade, Ivor MacAskill. Performed by Rosana Cade, Ivor MacAskill, Jo Hellier, Tim Spooner, Ray Gammon. Set, prop & costume design Tim Spooner. Sound design Yas Clarke. Cameras Jo Hellier. Lighting design Jo Palmer. Cinematographer Kirstin McMahon, Jo Hellier. Production manager Sorcha Stott-Strzala. Assistant stage manager Ray Gammon. Outside eye Nic Green. Movement advisor Eleanor Perry. Captioning Collective Text, Rosana Cade, Ivor MacAskill, Jamie Rea. Caption design Yas Clarke, Daniel Hughes.
Production, Dr. Nora Laraki, Mary Osborn – Artsadmin
Commissioned by Fierce Festival (Birmingham) ; Kampnagel International Sommerfestival-Kampnagel (Hambourg) ; Tramway (Glasgow) ; Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER vzw (Gand)
With the support of Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (Brighton) ; Battersea Arts Centre (London) ; LIFT (London) ; Take Me Somewhere (Glasgow) ; Creative Scotland ; Arts Council England ; Rudolf Augstein Stiftung
Support for development The Work Room – Diane Torr Bursary (Glasgow) ; Scottish Sculpture Workshop (Aberdeen) ; National Theatre of Scotland (Glasgow) ; Live Art Development Agency (Londres) ; Gessnerallee (Zurich) ; Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Francfort) ; Forest Fringe ; West Kowloon Cultural District (Hong Kong) ; LGBT Health & Wellbeing Scotland (Glasgow)
Supported by the British Council as part of the UK/France Spotlight on Culture 2024 Imagining Together programme
The MC93 – Maison de la culture de Seine-Saint-Denis and the Festival d’Automne à Paris present this show in co-realisation.
Drawing upon Collodi's tale, the Cade-MacAskill duo uses theatre to investigate the little- explored realms of queer love and affection. In doing so, they tell the story of gender transition and its repercussions on the couple. The piece itself, The Making of Pinocchio, becomes a burlesque-inspired manifesto for different forms currently under construction.
Even though the green background has been replaced by red velvet, it is of course on a film set that Ivor MacAskill and Rosana Cade play out the different scenes, embodying different versions of Pinocchio and Gepetto. Above them, a screen enlarges and shrinks their silhouettes, thereby reaffirming, in the eyes of Judith Butler, the extent to which gender is a question of performance. Here, the story of the puppet who dreamt of being a boy becomes a metaphor for the transition that MacAskill initiated in 2018. Within a couple, when one partner relinquishes their feminine identity in order to go through the process of becoming a man, undertaking a series of social, bodily and administrative changes in the process, the other person might see their own patterns of thought being thrown into disarray. From out of the mock film-set staging of this very personal story, a festive and libertarian disorder emerges. But it is not so much about taking an indiscreet peek at the intimate details of a person's life story. On the contrary, the show is about the invention of a form with which to express fluidity in general. “We'll never manage to finish the piece,” the couple finally admits. Which just about sums up its magic formula: the unfinished as an aesthetic and ethical model.
In the same place
Soa Ratsifandrihana Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna
Committing moving bodies to a contemporary form of orality, Soa Ratsifandrihana, the guitarist Joël Rabesolo and performers Audrey Mérilus and Stanley Ollivier draw on their diasporic narratives and origins to tell a story they would have liked to hear or see. The three Malagasy words Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna, meaning comparison, transmission and rivalry, form variations in which the performers slide in and out of different states and seem to follow a movement in perpetual metamorphosis.
Jeanne Balibar Les Historiennes
Three women return from the past thanks to three female contemporary historians who bring them back to life via three separate accounts. Here, the actress Jeanne Balibar uses them as the basis for a staged reading. Four women from today’s world take a particularly eloquent and incisive look at three emblematic female destinies.
Nacera Belaza La Nuée
With a reputation for minimalist and captivating choreographies, Nacera Belaza continues the exploration of the circle and rhythm she initiated with Le Cercle (2019) and L'Onde (2021), both landmarks in her choreographic language. Following on from an initial period of creation in Brussels in May 2024, the choreographer then enlarged the creative process of La Nuée by inviting ten new performers to the stage.
Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll) This is not an embassy (Made in Taiwan)
Rimini Protokoll's roving director Stefan Kaegi takes us, in the company of three native performers and residents, to the island of Taiwan. The fictional element of this show, in which the onstage action filmed live takes us through the twists and turns of a miniature décor, points to a somewhat grotesque geopolitical reality.
Joël Pommerat Marius
Inspired by the work of Marcel Pagnol, this show explores the theme of escape. Some of the actors had their first experience of theatre at the Maison centrale d'Arles prison. Marius provides audiences with a unique opportunity to discover a little-known but crucial dimension of Joël Pommerat's art.