Scenic creation
EXILE
WITH
the collaboration of sarah koné
la compagnie sans père
& laurent cabasso
ABOUT US
In all times and places, oppressed peoples have fled.
“Driven by war, by famine, by extremism, by the murderous madness of men.
Let them be hunted, displaced, taken away, torn from their lives.
Whether they come from Asia, Africa, Europe or the Americas.
Whether they seem to be survivors of history or the living skin of today’s world.
They came back, they said, they wrote,
These words reach us, these languages have survived time and oblivion.
Exil was born because I felt the urge, perhaps even the need, to come face to face with these words, so rarely uttered.
The need to hear them and make them heard.
Discover how, in certain forests, migrant communities are organizing themselves into a people ready to receive the law.
To hear the story of Cassius, a 12-year-old survivor of the Rwandan genocide.
Rithy Pahn’s search for the missing image that disappeared in Cambodia.
Charlotte Delbo’s cry, Why? Why? Because all this is inexplicable.
And a few years after Maya Angelou’s Antigone des temps modernes.
I needed to hear the extraordinary language of the story of the Lady of Qina poem telling the story of a woman who was the victim of a bloody revolt in fifth-century China.
And finally, listen to the Bible’s account of the wanderings of those who set out from Succoth and camped at Etham, at the edge of the desert…
Giving a helping hand to those who today cross deserts.
Then I imagined Galina Ustvolskaya’s grand duet for cello and piano, whose five movements, like arrows of fire, would mark space and time.
It was then that I remembered the emotion I felt when I first saw the work of the young actors and singers of Compagnie Sans Père and Sarah Koné.
So it’s to them, to their voices, to their presence, to their gazes, so different and so intense, that I wanted to entrust these texts. They who would never pretend that they could be these people, and at the same time could be any of them.
I wanted the voice of my cello to join their eight voices.
Creating a choir of spoken and sung voices.
As if to support each other. As if to continue.”
PROGRAM
Texts extracted from //
Jean Hatzfeld, In the Nude of Life
Charlotte Delbo, Measuring our days
Rithy Panh, The missing image
Maya Angelou, Still I Rise
Wei Zhang, The Lady of Qin
The Bible, Book of Numbers
Smaïn Laacher, The people of the illegal immigrants
Charlotte Delbo, Auschwitz and beyond
MUSIC
Sofia Goubaïdoulina, Prelude No. 3 for solo cello
Galina Ustvolskaya, Grand duo for cello and piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Excerpt from the 5th suite
Igor Stravinsky, Elegy for Solo Cello
Henry Purcell, Let me weep for voice and cello
François Couperin, Leçon des Ténèbres for solo cello, excerpts
Johannes Brahms, Da unten im Tale
ALB, Golden chains
credits & thanks
DESIGN
Sonia Wieder-Atherton with the collaboration of Sarah Koné
WITH THE COLLABORATION OF
Sonia Wieder-Atherton, cello | Laurent Cabasso, piano And Anna Gianforcaro, Eliott Appel, Jeanne Pollacchi, Léontine Maurel-Paurd, Ludmilla Bouakkaz, Manon Iside, Matthieu Louis-Marie, Violette Clapeyron
SOUNDTRACK PRODUCTION
Franck Rossi
SCENOGRAPHY
Lucie Rizzo
LIGHTS
Thierry Fratissier based on an idea by Jean Kalman
PRODUCTION
Madamelune in coproduction with Gaité Lyrique, Théâtre du jeu de Paume, Abbey de Noirlac, Maison de la Musique de Nanterre, Arsenal de Metz, Théâtre de St Quentin en Yvelines
PHOTOS
Marthe Lemelle
WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Adami, La Culture Copie Privée, DAC de Paris,
DRAC Île-de-France and Fonds de dotation Les Partageurs.
