The Pyre

Premiere

Gisèle Vienne – choreographer, artist, and puppeteer – has created a world marked by terror and trouble, the lively mixed with inertia, and perception trapped by hyperrealism. Her new creation, The Pyre condenses abstract, figurative, and narrative writing and pushes the intense relationship between Gisèle Vienne and the text by Dennis Cooper to its limits. Vienne and Cooper have worked together since 2004. A dancer and a boy, totally mute, evolve in a luminous installation reminiscent of contemporary urban lighting – the city, the club.

Anja Röttgerkamp dans The Pyre. © Maarten Vanden Abeele

Throughout this musical and choreographic score, the narrative of a fictional author grappling with his late mother slowly appears. For their first collaboration with IRCAM, Gisèle Vienne, Peter Rehberg, and Stephen O’Malley have highlighted the visual depth using electronic spatialization. The Pyre, a thousand and one writings of excess.

Conception, Direction, Choreography and Scenography Gisèle Vienne
Musical Creation, Performance, and Live Broadcasting KTL [Stephen O’Malley et Peter Rehberg]
Text Dennis Cooper
Lighting Patrick Riou
Costumes José Enrique Ona Selfa
Video Creation Robin Kobrynski
Set Design/Leds Designgroup Professional GmbH, LED Lightdesign
Other Set Design Espace et cie

Created in collaboration with and performed by Anja Röttgerkamp alternating with Léon Rubbens, Lounès Pezet, Rose Mousselet and Kamiel Van Looy
Artistic Collaboration Anne Mousselet
Technical Collaboration carried out by the team from the Opéra de Lille
Sound Spatialization Manuel Poletti
IRCAM Computer Music Design Thomas Goepfer
Conception of 3D Plans Rémi Brabis
Scenography Assistance Marc Le Hingrat

To Jonathan and Jean-Luc

Associate Production DACM. An Opéra de Lille / Le Parvis, Scène National Tarbes Pyrénées / Centre Pompidou, Les Spectacles Vivants – Paris / Ircam / La Comédie de Caen, Centre Dramatique National de Normandie / Coproduction Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy et La Bâtie – Festival de Genève dans le cadre du projet PACT bénéficiaire du FEDER avec le programme INTERREG IV A France-Suisse / Festival Automne en Normandie / Scène nationale d’Evreux / Centre de Développement Chorégraphique Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénées (accueil en résidence) / Centre Dramatique National Orléans Loiret Centre / Le Maillon, théâtre de Strasbourg/Scène européenne / Pôle Sud, scène conventionnée pour la danse à Strasbourg/ Malta Festival Poznan 2013/ Holland Festival – Amsterdam / International Summer Festival – Hambourg / Künstlerhaus Mousonturm – Francfort / Next Festival, Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai & Valenciennes / BIT Teatergarasjen – Bergen / IDEOLOGIC ORGAN / Designgroup Professional GmbH coproduction. Supported by the Festival actoral with the collaboration of DICRéAM. Thanks to P.O.L. éditeur.

In the framework of the TRANSFABRIK – “TRANSFABRIK, project created by the Institut Français in cooperation with the Goethe Institute and the support of Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication and the OFAJ. This project also received the support of Total and the SACD. This project is a part of the Année franco-allemande – cinquantenaire du Traité de l’Élysée.”