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Columbia Circus

  • Cécile Léna

    France

    Performing arts, visual arts, theater, scenography, installation

  • 20mn
    Ages 8 and up
    Free

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© C.Léna
© C.Léna
© C.Léna
© C.Léna
© Alexandre Chamelat
© C.Léna
© C.Léna
© C.Léna

Teaser

Presentation

– The installation is free to visit within the limits of the available places and in adherence to health protocols – 

Enter the caravan! You are invited to plunge into the immersive environment of a trapeze artist. By sitting in their dressing room for a moment, you will become this trapeze artist as they prepare to perform. As if perched above the treetops, you will dive down into the memory of their story. You will discover the Columbia Circus tent as it pulsates a vibrant red in the square in front of the train station, you will be the final witness to its flamboyant presence...

"At the foot of the Celestial mountains, on the square in front of the station, there it was, shrouded in mist, flamboyant red, it seemed as if it was pulsating, a beating heart, matte, like a warm pebble being caressed in the bottom of a pocket..."

Creation & development Cécile Léna

Production manager, set design & creation of modules Marc Valladon

Light design Jean-Pascal Pracht

Sound design & musical composition Christophe Menassier

Performers Pablo Pinasco, Anne-Laurence Loubigniac, Christian Lousteau, Thibault de Montalembert

Programming & electronics Clément Bossut, Gaël Jaton

Distribution Marthe Lemut / Or Not 

Project initiated by the citéCirque – CREAC cultural center in Bègles

Production citéCirque of the CREAC cultura center in Bègles in partnership with Léna d’Azy

Coproduction City of Bègles / IDDAC departmental institute for cultural development / the Region Nouvelle-Aquitaine / the DRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine / the Bordeaux metro area / CIRCa national circus center – Auch Gers Occitanie / Théâtre des Quatre Saisons national theater in Gradignan / the Centre d’Animation Bastide Queyries in Bordeaux / Association Larural in Créon / the Ecole de Cirque de Bordeaux circus arts center.

Support the Academy of Bordeaux school district, the DSDEN department of the national education services, and the Smart Cie circus group.

"The quality of the installation is exceptional, you should run to visit..."

– Le Monde.fr

"The most beautiful proposition of the last few days uses the circus as a subject and not as a medium. It is Columbia Circus ... A marvel of intricate plastic and sound creates a poetic journey in a delightfully bygone universe."

– La Gazette des Festivals

"Cécile Léna is a curious scenographer: her creations come to life in models that she shapes herself. A universe of great poetry."

– Ouest France 

"A moving tribute to the performing arts."

– Les Trois Coups 

The Léna d'Azy company is based in Bordeaux and was created in 2005 by Cécile Léna.

Léna d’Azy produces immersive shows and embraces cultural outreach and interactive theatrical and artistic creations.

In all the association’s creations, the presentation space – which becomes crystallized as the model is made – recounts a fiction to the spectators. With sound and light, the spaces take the guise of miniature shows and mark the encounter between performing arts, literature, visual arts, and digital arts.

Evoking the themes of illusion, intimacy, and memory, the company brings together creators, technicians, researchers, and producers to explore Cécile Léna’s ideas using a plural writing and creative process based on the principle of the script. This process goes on to give life to the miniature shows.

For the past 15 years, the company has been developing unique and demanding creations that allow the spectator to become intimate with the work in an accessible manner. Everything is imagined to contribute to this experience so that the art and the technology offer a motionless journey to the audiences that visit the presentation spaces that have been created specifically for them.

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