First production Theatre

23.24.25.26 april 09

Thursday, Friday 9pm / Saturday 7:30pm / Sunday 4.15pm

Massimo Furlan invites the figure of the bear into his strange theatre of images. The bear is the animal that traditionally does not speak, that is considered an idiot. With humour, poetry, a lot of visual and sound power, Furlan awakens our emotions: a few childhood traces, small fears, references, soft skins. This Swiss director tells us our own stories like nobody else, the stories of a generation born in the mid-60’s, haunted by images, memories turned fiction. In his universe, which is both visually clever and surprising and full of humour, he has built theatrical journeys which are often furiously funny and nostalgic.

See synopsis (pdf in french/72KB)

’’You can speak, you are an animal explores the issue of animality, language and idiocy. All these topics had appeared in previous projects, such as Palo Alto and Sono qui per l’amore, and during meetings with experts in the field of science and art.

For this new production, I was interested in the figure of the bear, an animal revered since prehistoric times. A pagan animal of worship inspiring fear until the Middle Ages, the bear can stand up on its back legs, like Man, and knows how to walk on two feet. Its stature and power are something to behold. It is a totem, the icon of the warrior, claimed by some civilisations as their ancestor. The bear has a voice, a call, a growl: greedy, prone to anger, sensual, he represents impulsion and sexual desire.

In the Middle Ages, the bear was hunted, chased, eradicated. He was domesticated, shown for entertainment to the public like a circus animal. Then, the bear became a transitional object for the child, as the much loved and much abused teddy, an indispensable companion, a silly mascot, a character in cartoons.

What is interesting in this animal is that exact paradox and contradiction: a terrifying, wild predator on one side, and a tame, educated and civilised one on the other. An exciting perspective on the topic of the animal was given by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in Mille Plateaux, through the concept of “becoming-animal”. In reading Kafka’s books, they opened this topic, through the issue of the metamorphosis: the strange, violent as well as comical aspects of men turning into animals. The topic of the animal, more precisely that of the “becoming”, the transformation, the process, is at the heart of our work: it is about performance and representation.’’ Massimo Furlan & Claire de Ribaupierre

Background

Massimo Furlan was born in Lausanne of Italian parents. After graduating from the School of Fine Arts in Lausanne (1984-1988), he started a series of works centred on the topics of memory and oblivion. His work has been regularly exhibited since 1987. He is mainly interested in stage representation and he has worked with several dance and theatre companies. In 2003, he founded Numero23Prod, which attempts to highlight the performance and the installation. From thereon, several projects have emerged, such as Furlan Numéro 23, International Airport, (Love story) Superman, Palo Alto, Numéro 10 and Les filles et les garçons. His projects may derive from an image in his memory: for example, the photograph of a singer in his sister’s bedroom (Je rêve/je tombe and Live me/Love me); the times when, as a kid, he played football alone in his room while listening to the match reports on the radio (Furlan/Numéro 23 and Numéro 10); when, before bedtime, he ran around in his pyjamas with a scarf tied around his neck, a la Super Hero ((love story) Superman); or when, as a teenager, he fell in love with a girl and didn’t know what to tell her (Gran Canyon Solitude, Les filles et les garçons).

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Cast and crew

A project by Massimo Furlan & Claire de Ribaupierre.

Music by Stéphane Vecchione.

Lighting by Antoine Friderici.

Costumes by Karine Dubois.

Make-up by Julie Monot.

Sound engineer: Philippe de Rham.

With Elèhn Rion, François Karlen, Sun-Hye Hur, Young Soon Cho, Sophie Guyot, Claire de Ribaupierre, Anne Delahaye, Nicole Seiler, Stéphane Vecchione, and Massimo Furlan.

Admin: Laura Gamboni.

Distribution: Simone Toendury, Véronique Maréchal / Tutu Production.

tutuprod@infomaniak.ch

Thanks to

Coproduced by Les Subsistances / Lyon / France, Festival de la Bâtie (Geneva), Arsenic (Lausanne), Dampfzentrale (Bern), Numéro23Prod (Lausanne).

With the help of: Ville de Lausanne, Etat de Vaud, Loterie Romande, Pro Helvetia-Fondation suisse pour la culture, Pour-cent culturel Migros, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Ernst Göhner Stftung.

Price

€5

Duration

1 hr 15 min approx

Residence

6-26 april 09

Tour dates

3-8 September 09: Festival de La Bâtie (Geneva)

Late 2009 / Early 2010: Dampfzentrale (Bern)

11-21 March 2010: Arsenic (Lausanne)

Link

www.massimofurlan.com