2023-08-05 18:05:00
As atypical as it is essential, actor, musician, acrobat, vocal or not, director, philosopher walker, theater and street lover, Bernard Massuir, with a CV as long as a day without bread, has done it all. Or almost.
Trained at the Lassaad school, where he later taught, present for more than thirty years in the theatrical landscape, he privileged the gesture, until this accident during the Dangerous Liaisons of Feria Musica (1997) which nailed him to the bed for months following a herniated disc. It was then that he became interested in music, voice and a lucky star, the American Mary Clark, called him. “It was 1998. She knew I was starting to sing and booked me, without asking my opinion, for a mini festival in New York, at the intersection of 43rd Street and 5th Avenue. It was a great success. Which will then lead me to play as the opening act for Philip Glass between the two twin towers!”
This time, it will not be necessary to cross the Atlantic to listen to it but our green Gaume. Bernard Massuir gives us an appointment, at dawn, at the International Festival of Street Arts in Chassepierre. The unexpected experience promises to be bewitching and regenerating for a suspended moment, in an exceptional place, this garden of the Maison du pays, a small enclosure at the foot of the church with a view of the Semois, all at daybreak. What more ? The story, however, almost did not sing itself.
Why did you first refuse the invitation of Charlotte Charles-Heep, the director of Chassepierre?
In Chassepierre, there are a lot of people, noise, but my new show, Pieces of peace, is very meditative. It is not intended for the street. I rather perform in silent places, in cloisters, the ruins of a forge, so many settings adapted to the show, this meditative music, this very refined relationship. When I told Charlotte that the only time I might come was at sunrise, she took me at my word. And I am delighted with this unexpected project. So I will play at 6am during the two days of the festival. The challenge will be to have an audience. Who will come ? The partygoers who end their night? The die-hard yogis? Will they be 20 or 150? I do not know.
What does dawn represent for you?
It is awakening. As suggested, moreover, by the music of Pieces of peace. It lights up the senses. And then there is the light which does good to the being.
Are you more evening or morning?
My problem is that I am evening and morning. I like the morning, especially in winter, when the silence is always there and you can hear the birds. This morning I was up at six o’clock. Even for my art, I often compose in the morning, because it’s a time when we are fresh, available. The page is blank. You just have to fill it out.
Do you remember a particular dawn?
I remember an exceptional dawn. I was a teenager. I was in Switzerland and climbed a 3000 meter peak and dust…. The weather was glorious and the sun rose little by little. All the peaks lit up one following the other, with this incredible pink light emerging from behind the rock. Ping!, the Matterhorn, Ping!, the Dent Blanche… It was splendid… But the circumstances were of course exceptional. Wherever I am, I have pleasure thanks to this renewal which is announced, with the cycle which takes once more, with this new page to be written. I have been practicing Tai Chi for a few years, for an hour every morning. This is the right time for vital energy. Yoga, meditation are also in the morning temporality. In the Catholic religion, there are matins, and in Buddhist temples, in Japan, it is mainly in the morning that things happen. With Pieces of peace, we also touch on a form of spirituality. It is certainly a concert but it comes to caress the soul.
How was the desire for this new show born?
The preview took place in Amsterdam on March 7, 2020 and we all know what happened on March 13, 2020… It was during the march of the philosophers, in Gaume in 2019, that the idea came to me. come. I was playing two slightly soft songs and the audience wanted this moment of calm, because the artistic proposals are often noisy, colorful, very committed and I have the impression that there are not many other directions . We are very strong in the claim but I tell myself that there is also room for a form of poetry that calls for calm. This is part of my research. The world is brutal, noisy, fast and it seemed interesting to me to propose an artistic form which brings a kind of peace, of well-being. I don’t think I was mistaken. All the feedback is amazing. Often, the word that comes back is that it feels good.
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