Musical theatre - art brut

Performances 27-31 January 09 at 8pm

André Robillard, an Art Brut artist discovered by Jean Dubuffet, has developed a universe of strange creatures, alien languages, war machines made of wood and scrap materials. This huge and peculiar world, built within the familiar confines of his bedroom, was bound to echo the work of Alexis Forestier. His music and his plays have been for a long time built around soft obsessions, sensitive echoes and onstage languages. Together with Charlotte Ranson, Alexis Forestier has invited Robillard centre stage to set off this man’s vivid imagination, for a fertile journey in an erratic land of languages for three unusual artists.

“He uses History’s conflicts to build his oeuvre, to sublimate them and to eliminate deprivation: his own deprivation and somewhat the world’s deprivation.” Alexis Forestier

See video on www.recmag.com

+ Installation of André Robillard’s works (rifles, drawings, etc.)

To discover at the end of the plays.

+ Round table discussion on the topic “Getting confident within the norm, taking risks in the fringe” lead by Marie-José Mondzain, Wednesday 28 January at the end of the show.

See synopsis (pdf in french/72kb)

See flyer (pdf in french/264kb)

See press book (pdf in french/512kb)

See teaching aids (pdf in french/956kb)

See poster (pdf in french/2.1mo)

How did the Tuer la misère project come to life between André Robillard & Les Endimanchés?

Alexis Forestier: It emerged from our unexpected meeting with André Robillard. Charlotte Ranson mentioned the fact that she had met Robillard in Fleury-les-Aubrais in the outskirts of Orléans. I knew his work as well as some of his recordings. We went to visit him in Fleury-les-Aubrais. He lives in the psychiatric hospital where he spent his whole life, after being put there by his parents when he was nine. In the sixties, he was asked if he wanted to work in the clinic’s water treatment plant.

He said yes, and since then has been drawing and building war machines and rockets, his oeuvre. With bits and pieces collected everywhere, he started making his first rifles. Nowadays, he lives in a little two-bedroom house/studio, filled to the brim of the things he collects and keeps meticulously. “He collects all the rubbish in the world”, just like Auguste Forestier did according to Jean Oury, in order to reinvent and reconstruct himself. I got to the heart of the rapport between Charlotte and André. I was invited to join them and to form a little constellation.

How did your common project develop?

AF: When I met André, I had a strange feeling, like I had found again some ancient worlds that had driven Les Endimanchés at the start of the company: the imagination linked to childhood, a curiosity for world or folk music, an attraction for popular culture. Immediately, we became mates, as André is very welcoming, always ready to show people his world, full of worn out ideas, stereotypes, as well as generosity and humour. It was as if I had a natural ability to understand it because his universe felt familiar to me. He has a natural tendency to play a part, he is forever telling stories which contain or develop his own. This is partly why we decided to call this show Tuer la misère (To Kill Deprivation), because he always tell the story, in various guises, of a bad start in life and of the possibility suddenly seen to access a creative process that will allow him to get out, to “sweep away” his pain. There seems to be in his work a territory abandoned or at least sufficiently disengaged thanks to art.

Could you say then that your work is supporting the works of Robillard?

AF: We felt like it was necessary to invoke a background which would give people an idea of the extent of André’s imagination. His head is full of memories of the war, which take the form of slightly old-fashioned codes, signs left there by History, elements that he uses to make his rifles and develop his drawings: the Russian air force, the Germans, Hitler... He remembers the war, what he saw of it, but he doesn’t have a political conscience per se, rather an accumulation of events which shows the persistent pain inflicted during History. He uses History’s conflicts to build his oeuvre, to sublimate them and to eliminate deprivation: his own deprivation and somewhat the world’s deprivation.

How will you link your universe and André Robillard’s?

AF: We are looking to build a language entity from heterogeneous elements. Music is playing a vital role, thanks to the sharp input of Antonin Rayon. There is a sort of to-and-fro between raw language and a complex structure. We must be able to see History’s background in a different way to André. You’ll hear Eisler’s lieders, the hum of war and the murmur of revolutionary songs. These sounds reveal André’s ability to use these patterns to support his play and as a source of inspiration. Even before we started to work on it, Charlotte and I read Celan’s writings. Some of his poems vividly echoed André’s obsessions, his ability to resist, his experience of the Holocaust which had a strong emotional impact on Celan. An obvious common trait between Celan’s writings and Robillard’s life was this insurmountable part of life, as far as they both fought to withstand the upheavals of History. André’s fight was designed to “keep counter-attacking to destroy deprivation” and to widen his territory through the ramifications of his work, by going towards the world, having the world come to him and imagining what lies beyond the palpable world.

Parcours

Alexis Forestier is a director and musician. His company, Les Endimanchés, have for several years now been developing a research on the relationship between words and music. Inspired by Gertrude Stein, Franz Kafka, Henri Michaux, or René Char, they explored new territories which led them closer in style to music concerts and performance art. In 2005, they created at Les Subsistances Sunday Clothes, showcased Elisavieta Bam (by Danii Harms) and took on René Char’s Claire at the 2007 Avignon Festival.

Ever since 1999, Charlotte Ranson has been directing her own plays for the Théâtre de la valse. In 2006, she met André Robillard in the psychiatric hospital of Fleury-les-Aubrais in the outskirts of Orléans. They soon became great friends. In 2007, she introduced André Robillard to Alexis Forestier.

André Robillard is one of the stars of Art Brut. His works have been part of Jean Dubuffet’s collections since very early on. They are exhibited in the Museum of Art Brut in Lausanne, Switzerland, and are also present in the collections of Aracine and abcd. Outside of his “scrap rifles”, his collection of diverse unusual objects makes up a precarious imaginary space... He is a self-taught musician who plays accordion and sings in a guttural and strangely melodious voice.

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Cast and crew

With Alexis Forestier, Emma Juliard, Charotte Ranson, Antonin Rayon, André Robillard.

Created by Alexis Forestier, Charlotte Ranson, in partnership with André Robillard.

Lighting by Emma Juliard.

Music written by Alexis Forestier.

Sound and music device: Antonin Rayon.

Stage Manager: Laure Couturier.

Coproduced by Compagnie Les Endimanchés, ARCADI (Action Régionale pour la Création Artistique et la Diffusion en Ile de France).

Coproduction & Residence: Les Subsistances / Lyon / France.

With the support of: La Fonderie au Mans.

The company Les Endimanchés is funded by DRAC Ile-de-France - Ministry of Culture and Communication.

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes approx

Prices: €12 / €9 / €6

Pass’ for 2 shows €20 / €16

Social Gatherings

Creative/Recreational visit: Sat 10 Jan at 4pm

Soupe à la répèt’: Mon 19 Jan 09 at 7:30pm

Babel: Wed 28 Jan after the performance

Round table discussion on the topic “Getting confident within the norm, taking risks in the fringe” lead by Marie-José Mondzain

Marie-José Mondzain is a philosopher and a project leader at the CNRS Research Council, and she’s not just a specialist of images. Her important work on specular productions of yesterday and today highlights the spectator, who is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to the usual hostage hypnotised by images: hers is acutely opposed to fascination and refusing hypnosis. She has worked on iconoclasm during the Byzantine period. She has written, among other things: Van Gogh ou la Peinture comme tauromachie (Ed. Épure, 1996), Transparence, opacité: quatorze artistes contemporains chinois (Ed. Cercle d’art, 1999), Image, icône, économie. Les sources byzantines de l’imaginaire contemporain (Ed. Seuil, 2000), L’image peut-elle tuer? (Ed. Bayard, 2002), Le Commerce des regards” (Ed. Seuil, 2003), Voir Ensemble, douze voix autour d’un texte de Jean-Toussaint Desanti (L’Exception, cinema think tank, Gallimard, 2003), Homo spectator (Ed. Bayard, 2007) and Vivre le sens (collective, Ed. Seuil, 2008).

Thanks to Fondation de France. With the help of Villa Gillet

Artist in Residence

5-31 Jan 2009

Visit

La ferme du Vinatier : www.ch-le-vinatier.fr/ferme/