Quelque chose s’attendrit

Renaud Herbin’s performance for optical lens and puppet

“This performance is the desire to find the public where it is still possible to meet them and share with them a moment of elaboration of an upcoming creation. Something is softened is a short visual and sound poem whispered in the ear and eyes of the spectators, like a caress or a waking dream. When a tiny human being is confronted with the scales of infinite light, with no edge or limit other than the hanging sheet of a screen, the archaic principles of optics reveal secret realities. This being explores an upside-down world where gravity pulls us upwards and where vagueness is the rule, the net the event. A poem like a focus on our feeling of existing, at the end of our threads, at the origin of breath and movement, at the birth of life.”

The effect of optical lens projected on a screen gives an impression of a luminous planet. Then the main character, the little puppet, seems to travel in an unknown cosmos containing this enlighted planet. I started to listen to NASA sound and a lot of launching conversations. I noticed that the prosody was very melodic with the same intonation and I decided to transcribe it for cello. I mixed the two sources by crossing the common characteristics of the signals. I used only the resonances of tibetan bowls to wrap the listeners in a deep round sound like they would be in space. I used samples and effects to create crispy textures on it revealing the asperites of the planet.

Staging : Renaud Herbin
Puppet : Hélène Barreau
Music : Sir Alice
Research & construction : Sophie Prietz, Anthony Latuner, Éric Fabacher
Automation : Maxime Lance
General managment : Thomas Fehr
Production : Mathilde Mangeot for TJP (National Drama Centre)