Encyclopédie de la parole / Joris Lacoste
Pierre-Yves Macé, Sébastien Roux, Ictus Suite n°4

[Theatre]

In the last show of the choral suite series,  Encyclopédie de la parole has chosen to make audible, in a direct way, the material that composes its sound collection and of which it makes use of in the writing of its shows: recordings of the spoken word.

In Suite nº4, it is no longer a question of actors lending their bodies to disappeared voices, but rather that of the characters themselves who return from the past in order to speak to us with their own voices, original melody, inimitable timbre, and breathing. By means of Sébastien Roux’s sound design, the spoken words are the vehicle for spaces, images, situations, and segments of tension or emotion, in addition to events both major and minor. Similar to opera, the voices are underpinned and carried away, or along, by the instrumental music, performed here by seven members of the Ictus ensemble. The score by Pierre-Yves Macé shifts the focus of our listening and reveals hidden accents. This blending of the acoustic and the electric, and also the summoning up of associations of unique timbres, has the effect of exacerbating our perception. It gives rise to a sort of theatre of ghosts, with the difference being that these ghosts – who speak, whisper, shriek, desire and regret, dance, suffer, exalt, live and do not want to die – are ghosts that are very much alive. By picking up on the minute, infinite modulations of the human spoken word, Suite nº4 is a celebration of life at its most lively and fleeting. The piece is the means by which “the inflection of dear voices gone silent“ can be heard one last time.