Animal Architecte
Durée d'exposition
© Durée d'exposition, Animal Architecte © Marie Pétry ©
© Durée d'exposition, Animal Architecte © Marie Pétry ©
© Durée d'exposition, Animal Architecte © Marie Pétry ©
Concept and direction, Camille Dagen
With Emma Depoid, set and costume design
Performers: Thomas Mardell, Hélène Morelli
Lighting design, Hugo Hamman
Lighting director, Sébastien Lemarchand
Musical creation, Kaspar Tainturier-Fink
Sound designer, Valentin Kottelat
Video creation, Camille Dagen, Valentin Kottelat
Video control, Emma Depoid
Collective dramaturgy including Yannick Gonzalez, role creator
Production and development, Cécile Jeanson
Administrative management, Didier Abasq (Adlib)
Produced Animal Architecte
With support from JTN Jeune Théâtre National (Paris); La Loge et La Loge hors-les-murs; Agence culturelle Grand Est; Festival les Effusions et les Bourlingueurs; Compagnie Beau Geste; Mains d’Œuvres; Le CENTQUATRE-PARIS; Le Phénix, scène nationale de Valenciennes – pôle européen de création; T2G Théâtre de Gennevilliers, centre dramatique national
The Festival d'Automne à Paris is co-producer of this performance and co-presents it with Théâtre 13.
In this piece, Camille Dagen and Emma Depoid transpose to the stage the different steps of a manual of analogue photography. Durée d’exposition, a hybrid object on the frontiers of theatre and performance, functions as a methodical and playful attempt at capturing the real, thereby enabling us to rediscover the world.
The instruction manual unfurls before us, revealing the protocol behind the fabrication of an image, from framing to development. At each stage, and with disconcerting ease and astounding authenticity, the two performers embark on a performance, a sequence or an action which translates it, in artistic terms, to the stage. The writing draws upon texts encountered during the work process itself; fragments of different texts appear – Racine, Buchner or the front-page of a newspaper. In a way which is not void of humour, the piece touches upon the beauty of uncovered scenes, and the magic of the random and the incongruous. The vocabulary of photography, applied to time in the present, poses questions about the theatrical gesture and sheds light upon the inner workings of acting and portrayal. In doing so, the subject at the heart of the process reveals itself: separation, whether it be the break-up of a relationship or the distance which separates us from others. It is precisely this distance which this shared theatrical experience seeks to overcome. Animal Architecte bring us a piece which is both melancholic and joyous, and which makes full use of all artistic liberties.