Compagnie Non Nova

Premières at Avignon
Festival, 2010

« Sujets à vif »
(« Live subjects »)

From the 8th to the 14th of
July, at 18:00

(except for our day
off : Sunday the 11th of July)

Jardin de la Vierge –
Collège St Joseph

Seemingly, we have little in common ; Mr Anne-James
Chaton, writer and sound-poet, and myself, Miss Phia Ménard, juggler and
author. Unless you count the artistic form of our performance acts and the
dysfunction of our titles, Mr and Miss. Maybe that’s the key to my
invitation : we’re both working on the theme of identity. Anne-James does
this by stripping bare the part of our everyday life which is tracked, indexed
and numerised, and then transforming this into prose ; I tackle gender
duality in a theatrical context, using scenic movement. Both of us explore
rhythm in its trance form, in order to give space to a world of imagination. The voice is forced to the point of breathlessness
and the movement taken to the limit of equilibrium ; the aim is to summon
up a utopian state wherein the body surpasses itself.

Black Monodie is a site-specific
performance for the Jardin de la Vierge (Garden of the Virgin), Avignon.
Everything about this space and its name evokes the myth of the Madonna.

Was she first a woman before she became
an icon for eternity? She was the first (super) model of the ‘good’ woman
in a world run by men. The myth is 2000 years old,
and yet « they » (women) are still searching for their place in the
world. How can we still believe that Sisyphe is the only one pushing a boulder
up the mountain : « This universe henceforth without a master seems to him
neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that
night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the
heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus
happy. » (Albert Camus, « The Myth of Sisyphus »)

What if the path towards
becoming « She » was the same struggle and what if that struggle in
itself was worth it ? In answer to the misleading promise « When you
grow up you’ll become a princess ! », should we ceaselessly battle
our way through the storm to realise this destiny, or instead wait all our life
for happiness to come to us ?

Phia Ménard.

"Black Monodie" by Phia Ménard and Anne-James Chaton

Cast and production

Anne
James Chaton : author of texts and sound composition, performer.

Phia
Ménard : author, performer, director and set designer.

Jean Luc
Beaujault : assistant director, dramaturgy.

Rodolphe Thibaud : ice master, assistant.

Pierre Blanchet : stage manager

Honorine Meunier : tour manager

Claire
Massonnet : administration , production.

Anne-James Chaton

Anne-James
Chaton has developed a multipolar body of work, based on a close study
of the textual materials which make up the everyday life of
contemporary society.

This “poor’ literature, known as « ephemera », comprising a multitude of documents printed out by innumerable machines -bank
slips, shopping receipts, promotional flyers, customer loyalty cards,
business cards, bus, train and metro tickets, etc. – is the source of
Anne-James’ quests into sound, poetry and visual art, which he develops
through solo projects and in collaboration with artists from diverse
fields. Inspired
by the compositions and techniques drawn from the history of
literature, music and art, these elements take on the form of
sound-poetry musical scores (Evénements 99), performance booklets (Napoli Napoli with the director Benoît Bradel), text-paintings (Autoportraits, Portraits), songs (In The Event with the group The Ex, Valade Martial with the group Innocent X), art installations (Papier Peint, Family Mart et Compagnie) and objects (Intérieurs). Working on these forms leads Anne-James to explore diverse media and their forms, transposing books (Evénements 99) to CDs (Le Journaliste with the guitarist Andy Moor, Unitxt with the German artist Carsten Nicolaï – aka Alva Noto), page layout to poster design (Portrait, Un Monde Merveilleux), printed text to the exhibition of original documents (Papier Peint, how i’m becoming a japanese boy, FamilyMart et Compagnie), and the laying flat of original documents to their reconstruction in space as art installations. This
continuous focus on ‘low intensity literature’ has accompanied
Anne-James during his trips abroad for numerous performances on the
literary, rock and électronic music “scenes”. Other languages have also
helped enrich this research, introducing new resonances and written
forms to his artistic projects ; written, voiced and visual. This
polyglot dimension to his work has led him to collaborate with foreign
artists like the Dutch rock group The Ex, the English guitarist Andy
Moor, the Greek composer Yannis Kyriakides and the German electronic
musician Carsten Nicolaï – aka Alva Noto. In
2005 Anne-James Chaton received the grant ‘Encouragement’ from the
Centre National du Livre in Paris and in 2006 he won the support of the
‘Mission Stendhal’ from the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (the
French Foreign Ministry) for his literary project on the city of Naples
(Italy). In 2008 he was awarded an artistic residency at the Villa
Kujoyamo in Kyoto, Japan, by the French Ministry of Foreign and
Cultural Affaires. Since 2009 Anne-James Chaton has been a Board Member
of the poetry commission at the Centre National du Livre (National
Centre for the Book). 

Presse: 

revue de presse Black Monodie.pdf

Visuel: 

Photos: