Dancers, musicians and singers, artists with a wide range of talents explore shapes and colours through the interplay of bodies and rhythms, voices and images. Songs and percussion meet dance in a colourful dynamic where the arts mingle for the pleasure of the eyes and ears. Musical instruments (frame drums, Beninese bells, tuned bottles, etc.) transform the silhouettes while opening the doors to the imaginary world. What is the image of what I hear? What is the sound of what I see? Points, lines, colours, textures… They are inspired by the vocabulary of abstract art and explore notions of contrast, nuance, light and shade, emptiness and fullness. Big or small, square or round, 8 feet and 8 hands, 40 toes and 40 fingers… Four hearts in four bodies beat time to create a living musical tableau.
Body Quartet plunges us into the world of abstract art. This “concert of images” is inspired by artists representing different currents in abstraction, from its origins to contemporary visual arts: Kandinsky, Delaunay, Mirò, Rothko, Pollock, Tinguely, Julio le Parc… Conceived as a series of “tableaux” – Tétracor, Le vide et le plein, La quadrature du cercle, Géant et minuscule… – the forms and colours are expressed through music and movement.
“In successive tableaux, the stage space is transformed, moving from shadow play on large panels of white canvas to the magical emergence of colour, from sound and rhythm (body percussion and astonishing invented instruments) to sensitive movement… The palette is wide and the talent on show. A play about the creative act, to be shared joyfully.”
Françoise Sabatier-Morel – TTT On aime passionnément – Télérama Sortir, January 2015
“Painting, singing, the artists draw on all forms of artistic expression, inviting children to be astonished, curious, and to awaken their senses in their relationship with the physical world. Even adults are surprised by their creativity.”
Le Journal du Centre (Nevers), January 2015
“Four artists – dancers, actors and singers – offer a palette of interpretations of abstract art in which the body leads the dance, the voice orders the movement, the light guides the expression and the music whispers its creative breath. (…) A multi-disciplinary show where sensation is the essence of creativity.”
Audrey Terrisse – L’art abstrait en sensations – La Nouvelle République, November 2014
“There’s an aura of original, playful discovery. An encounter between ‘abstract’ painting and experimental music… (…) the two come together, with the idea of creating ephemeral, moving, contemplative and striking tableaux, ‘concerts of images’.”
Le Piccolo, November 2014
Cast
Conception and artistic direction Florence Goguel
Collective creation
With Bérengère Altieri-Leca, Gonzalo Campo and Florence Goguel
Music Frédéric Obry and Gonzalo Campo
Choreographic vision Martha Rodezno
Outside eye Frédéric Obry
Costumes and scenographic approach Marlène Rocher
Lighting design and stage construction Paco Galàn
Sound Tania Volke
Creation of musical instruments Alain Graine
Theatrical form, created in 2015
Age family audience from 4 years
Length 45 minutes
1 to 2 performances per day
Audience 300 people
Set mini L. 9 m x P. 7 m
Assembly 3 services
Staff 6 people on tour
Quatre à quatre
Quatre à Quatre extends the Body Quartet experience beyond the walls of the theatre. This musical and choreographic promenade is created according to the location, reinventing its form according to the spaces it encounters. It is aimed at all ages. After the tableaux vivants of Body Quartet inspired by twentieth-century abstract art, those of Quatre à Quatre echo the experiments of land art, combining sound and movement in a joyful encounter with nature.
Production Compagnie du Porte-Voix
Coproduction Ville de Limoges- Centres Culturels Municipaux (87)
Support The Compagnie du Porte-Voix is subsidised by the DRAC Ile-de-France – Ministère de la Culture. Conseil Départemental du Val d’Oise (95), Conseil Départemental des Hauts de Seine (92), Ville de Nanterre (92), ADAMI, SPEDIDAM, Espace Bernard Dagué à Louvres (95), Centre Culturel de Jouy-le-Moutier (95), Festival Théâtral en Val d’Oise (95), MCNN- Centre de création et de production de Nevers (58)- accueil en résidence, Théâtre Simenon à Rosny Sous Bois (93), Atelier de la compagnie ACTA (95)
