June 28, 2024 |
Comments closed on Les Invites de Villeurbanne, Street Arts Festival
© The Guests of Villeurbanne
ƒƒƒ article from Nicolas Thevenot
Street arts are celebrated in Villeurbanne. In this period of bad winds and brown tide, this street could well (re)become the epicenter of our public and political life. Attend an event such as the Festival The Guests of Villeurbanne it is therefore putting one’s feet back in the center of the chessboard, feeling how much this space (when it is not privatized by certain potentates such as LVMH) can actually be a place for exchanges of all kinds, for social diversity, of poetic interference, of aesthetic contradictions. The street is not smooth even though the cobblestones are no longer there. The street no longer leads to the strike square but nourishes a ferment of hope and surprise reaches even the most seasoned and jaded spectator. Unlike Aurillac or Chalon-sur-Saône, other large, highly publicized festivals, the programming of Guests from Villeurbanne is entirely ” in ” thus extending its 100 performances over 4 days when the two “big ones” are essentially ” off ” This must be said and proclaimed. And rejoiced in. In a context of increasingly precariousness in the performing arts sector, street arts, many of which already operate on a penny-pinching basis, are probably even more fragile than others. Frappaz workshopsthe national center for street arts and public space (with the author and director Nadège Prugnard at its head) and the municipality of Villeurbanne are the co-organizers, and because they fully finance its programming The Guests of Villeurbanne can afford the choice of requirement as well as that of eclecticism, without omitting that of research. Crossroads of varied artistic routes at the intersection of streets. This qualitative commitment is accompanied by a political vision put into action: more than equal programming for women for this edition, co-production support by Frappaz Workshops a significant number of projects, reading “texts in the street” by Beninese authors. And several open-air debates…
The author of these lines, and for the occasion a very special envoy, was able to see in the same day on Saturday two very distinct proposals but all equally resounding and stimulating due to the relationship they established, each in its own way, with public space.
At exactly 11 o’clock, all business having ceased, there occurred the incredible and extraordinary Molière!, from the Amaranta Company, held for almost two hours by an exhilarated Martin Petitguyot, holding his stage alone. All this in a no less exciting site: the Lugdunum stadium located between four blocks of buildings. Molière is a team sport, let it be said, it had its place and more. The actor and his audience therefore installed in a corner of this immense space. Offbeat conference, but also very well documented, drawing inspiration from the recent biography of Molière by Georges Forestier which completely renewed the historiography of the subject. Hearing the deep voice on the microphone of Martin Petitguyot resounding in this immense enclosure, both sports and dormitory, was like witnessing a remaking of the world (as if the New Popular Front had already come to power). The power of this voice, its cultural message, in a space which is usually saturated with whistles and sports commentary, was truly surreal. At the same time tribune, bully, and badly polished bear, the man had something to please. The outraged and outrageous accents ricocheted across all sides of the space. But above all, this Molière! makes theater while demystifying what could have made theater: the legends associated with the figure of Molière, that of an artist from the people writing for the people. Martin Petitguyot succeeds in taking on the clichés of the figure of the street comedian, braggart, big mouth, and getting away with it. Powerfully alive, the excess of the place suited him like a glove. This spectacle carried me away. Popular without it being a bad word and even if he himself uses it in abundance himself, dear Ariane taking for his rank, also all the little marquises of this world, Stéphane Bern at the head. What a joy to stick together in the pleasure of finding our Molière along the way. Let’s dare the word, this Molière! is a masterpiece in its writing and performance.
Even if the end of the day was dramatically shortened by downpours of rain, I was allowed to attend and participate in a sufficiently substantial part of the wandering performance entitled The faggot from the Jeannine Machine collective before the rain got the better of it so I could grab it and write these few lines. I will therefore not know the end of it but I dare to hope that it will not be rewritten to the sinister tune of “Fags at the stake” even though the next elective weekends could darken this story again. The faggot is therefore a stroll, a showcase word that can hide another: demonstration! Because indeed the spectacular process implemented by Jeannine Machine is based on the transformation of an audience into a demonstrative crowd. This collective creation directed by Brice Lagenèbre (he also wears the little black leather jacket of the eponymous figure) follows a physical journey through the streets of a city while following the chronology of the struggles for homosexual rights in society. In New York, there will be the events of Stonewall leading to the June Pride, or Pride March. Here, in France, the “sausage commando” stopping dead a reactionary broadcast on homosexuality by Ménie Grégoire on RTL, CGT demonstrations infiltrated by the FHAR groups (Front Homosexuel d’Action Révolutionnaire) … We march and the struggles follow one another. Brice Lagenèbre establishes an art of joyful reconstruction, with this playful part specific to street arts, directs the slogans of the crowd like a choirmaster, and, without losing any historical accuracy, captures this material in the manner of a comic strip which, in a few lines, would restore the essence of a story. Brice Lagenèbre does not overdo it, he is just in the greed of sketching his characters, he inspires confidence, sympathy, he speaks to us with the right distance that is necessary for this between poetic and political, he is our leader without having to raise his voice. In his introduction he had these words that for me hit the mark: public space was not open to homosexuals as homosexuals… so this stroll, didactic in its purpose without losing its festivity, could also be experienced as a reparation in action, like a new storming of the Bastille, this prison of tenacious hatreds that we will never overcome.
© Les Invites de Villeurbanne
Festival Les Invites de Villeurbanne
From Wednesday June 19 to Saturday June 22, 2024
Molière! direction, writing, acting: Martin Petitguyot
Accomplices: Gwen Aduh, Bernard Daisey, Josée Drevon, Chantal Joblon, Eric Petitjean, Jacques Ville
The faggot
Collective creation directed by Brice Lagenèbre
Writing: Brice Lagenèbre, Sarah Daugas Marzouk and Marlène Serluppus
Director: Sarah Daugas Marzouk, assisted by Marlène Serluppus
Game: Brice Lagenèbre
Sound management, stage and scenography: Céline Bertin
Decoration: Marie Bernardin
Costumes: Marlène Serluppus
Musical creation: Marc Prépus and Nora Couderc
