• 10th January - 9th February 2019

    Different locations

    ,

Grande —

  • Vimala Pons & Tsirihaka Harrivel

    France

    Music Hall, Circus, Music

  • 1h45
    Ages 10 and up
Grande © DR
Grande © DR
Grande © DR

teaser

Presentation

Surrounded by a multitude of objects and musical instruments, Vimala Pons and Tsirihaka Harrivel are doing their best to organize a mess in this loony revue where performances follow one another at breathtaking speed. Like one of Jacques Prévert's inventories, this show is the sum of half-statements:

GRANDE — is a duo; on the other hand, like a music hall, it is a revue with diverse passages that leave audiences furious, saddened, amorous, and questioning; it is also a performance written as a poem that can be completed in the comforts of one's own home.

GRANDE — is also a fresco that is structured like a piece from the Mind Fuck movement, with stories within stories, remerging themes, understanding coming after the fact. These notions have become the architecture of the narration and ultimately tell a story that is much bigger than a series of anecdotes or the vagaries of life.

GRANDE — is a mix of influences, inspirations, and active ghosts that may include Drowning by Numbers by Peter Greenaway, Longs Poèmes Courts à Compléter Chez Soi by Robert Filliou, illustrative music, analogy as an engine for telling not ONE story but SEVERAL simultaneous and interwoven stories.

Direction, creation, writing, music, sound & light design, accessories & prop design Tsirihaka Harrivel & Vimala Pons
General administration & stage management Charlotte Fégelé
Sound & stage management Manu Laffeach, Morgan Romagny
Engineers Elise Lahouassa
Costumes Vimala Pons & Remy Ledudal
Stage constructions Mathieu Delangle, Manu Laffeach, Julien Vadet,
Marion Abeille, Flavien Renaudon, Elise Lahouassa, Florian Méneret, Tsirihaka
Harrivel, Marlène Bouana
Director of production Adeline Ferrante
Associate producer and production administrator Murailles Music, Victoire Chose

The programming of GRANDE — is within the context of a regional tour initited and produced by Parallèle, the platform for international youth creation, which connects the Théâtre National de Nice, Centre Dramatique National, Nice Côte d’Azur, La Passerelle Scène Nationale des Alpes du Sud, Gap and La Criée - Théâtre National de Marseille. 

Coproductions Plateforme 2 Pôles Cirque en Normandie, La Brèche – Cherbourg & Cirque Théâtre d’Elbeuf; La Brèche, Pôle National des Arts du Cirque de Basse-Normandie / Cherbourg-Octeville ; Le CENTQUATRE-PARIS; Espace Malraux, scène nationale de Chambéry et de la Savoie ; Les Subsistances, Lyon ; Le Lieu Unique, Nantes; Théâtre de la Ville, Paris; Institut Français in Beirut, Lebanon; La Filature - Mulhouse; Le Prato - Lille; Nuit Blanche 2015, City of Paris; Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg; Le Quai, Centre dramatique national Angers Pays de la Loire; Le Manège - Reims; Bonlieu -Annecy; the Le Point Triple association; Film Argent; Argent Eléphant.

Support for residencies Villa Médicis, Rome; La Brèche, Pôle National des Arts du Cirque de Basse-Normandie / Cherbourg-Octeville; Le CENTQUATRE-PARIS; Les Subsistances, laboratoire international de creation artistique, Lyon ; Institut Français in Beirut, Lebanon; Espace périphérique (EPPGHV - City of Paris); Le Quai, Centre dramatique national Angers Pays de la Loire; Le Manège, scène nationale de Reims; Le Cirque-Théâtre d'Elbeuf, Pôle National des Arts du Cirque. 

General support French Ministry of Culture and Communication - Direction Générale de la Création Artistique, DRAC Pays de la Loire; Fondation Beaumarchais, Institut Français in partnership with the City of Paris; Association Géniale.

"For two hours, these performers—half human pinballs, half human cannonballs—combine live music, moments of laughter and performance with an astonishing endurance." Mouvement, Agnès Dopff

"GRANDE — marks the return of this duo that has shattered the protocols of contemporary circus."
Les Inrocks Philippe Noisette

"On a stage that takes the form of a workshop, behind a control room where melancholy techno is playing and one needs to buzz in to speak, the heap of props makes for a puzzle of possibilities." Libération, Olivier LammJanuary 2017 

"Vimala Pons and Tsirihaka Harrive relentlessly cultivate this sense of the instant, of non-perfection thanks to the speed of their performance. Bounding from one action to the other, they slalom between scenes as if they are acting for their lives (or close to it) every single evening." Le Monde, Rosita Boisseau

"A mix of force and fragility that is as seductive as it is moving, and that ends up sweeping everything away with it." Arte Journal, Frédérique Cantù 

"With imagination and brio, they dissect moments, emotions, everyday notions, alll while injecting snippets or reminiscences from the world of circus, of travelling fairs, even of music halls. It's politically powerful, modern, and ultimately indefinable."
Télérama, Stéphanie Barioz

Vimala Pons is an acrobat and actor (with the Bruno Podalydès, Benoît Jacquot and Paul Verhoeven companies, for example), while Tsirihaka Harrivel is a musician and circus artist. After they first met in 2005 at the Centre National des Arts du Cirque, they began writing a series of texts together that eventually led to the creation of the Laboratoire sur la Parole. This project seeks to explore the possibilities, limits, and prohibitions when it comes to speaking, meaning, and writing, all within the context of physical action, the act of the circus, and its history.

In 2007, as part of the physical circus program of the CNAC, they presented Le Numéro en 5 Épisodes. In 2012, they created De Nos Jours (Notes on the Circus) with the Ivan Mosjoukine collective, and in 2015 they held a non-stop performance of All Night Revue: Revue 1 à 6 as part of the Nuit Blanche festival in Paris. Grande was conceived in 2016 while in 2017 they composed the music for Stéphane Demoustier's film Allons Enfants and acted together in Bertrand Mandico's short film Ultra Pulpe. In 2018 work began on Tout ça / Que ça, which is based on the principle of 10 independent pieces written collectively.

They work in association with the Centquatre center in Paris as well as the Coursive in La Rochelle, and the Nanterre-Amandiers and Plateforme 2 circus centers in Normandy.

website (in French)

  • Thursday 10 January 08:00pm
  • Friday 11 January 08:00pm
  • Saturday 12 January 08:00pm
  • Thursday 17 January 08:30pm
  • Friday 18 January 08:30pm
  • Wednesday 6 February 07:00pm
  • Thursday 7 February 08:00pm
  • Friday 8 February 08:00pm
  • Saturday 9 February 08:00pm

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Different locations

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