2023-09-15 08:59:42
On the occasion of the Cultural Olympics (2024 Olympic Games) and the 40th anniversary of the European Heritage Days (from September 15 to 17), meeting with the director and choreographer, Raphaëlle Boitel, who designed, with her troupe, the Compagnie l ‘Oblié(e), a performance on the heights of the Palais Royal. Arpeggios, circus performers and artists moving to the rhythm of the Four Seasons… Breathtaking interview.
You are currently preparing the “Horizon Palais-Royal” project. Can you tell us more ?
Raphaëlle Boitel: It is a project which is part of a series started in 2019, highlighting a heritage through a plural creation, musical, dance, acrobatics, and open-air parkour, in view of all, and for free. This project is carried out with the Company that I founded in 2012, l’Oublié(e), whose particularity is to merge disciplines, between circus (I am in the vein of the “new circus”), dance, theater, cinema. Horizon Palais-Royal is a small step aside for us, because I added, this time, the course, which was not part of the Company.
What do you mean by “new circus”?
This is the contemporary circus. At the very beginning of the new circus, I was a performer, I worked with James Thierrée who, with his parents, participated in developing the circus, which was still very traditional thirty years ago. For twenty years, the circus has been one of the freest places in the artistic field, where we can merge theater, dance, music and performance. The aesthetic line of the Compagnie l’Oublié(e) is to be even more in fusion, to create polymorphous performers. So, depending on the shows, there can be, for example, text on stage, as in my last one (Ombres porte, editor’s note), but it is always around the circus, that is to say a discipline which places physical virtuosity at the center. Our specialty is to occupy the three dimensions of a theater, to use circus apparatus, virtuosity, and performance. In my work, the body is very present, and it serves a purpose.
With “Horizon Palais-Royal”, it is the third time that you have prepared an in-situ performance, highlighting the lighting and movement of a monument.
The first time was at the Bordeaux Opera, in 2019. The second, at the Saint-Front Cathedral in Périgueux, as part of the Mimos festival. This year, it is the first time as part of heritage days, at the Palais-Royal.
Where did you come up with this idea of a creation, outdoors, around a historical monument?
It was born in 2019. It started from my crush on the discipline of parkour, or free-run, the art of movement, which became known thanks to the yamakasi; and my desire to offer a transversal look at a heritage, where we see the incredible creativity of man and of what he has built. We are used to seeing heritage, here, we propose to look at them with bodies that evolve, with this idea of ascension, too, of man always in the process of building. It is an ode to freedom. One day, I saw the Bordeaux Opera and I suddenly had this desire that we occupy the roofs of this place in order to shift its image, where everything happens inside.
Why did you choose the Palais-Royal this time? And how did he participate in the creation of the show?
It was the Cultural Olympiads committee, which saw that we had a Horizon project at Saint-Front Cathedral and wanted us to do something in Paris, as part of these Olympiads. We visited several places in Paris, including the Pantheon, which I love. But for this project, several parameters come into consideration. The Palais-Royal has a soul, it gives off a very strong energy, symbolically, it fits into my vision of multidisciplinarity, since it brings together arts, architecture, and it has a history, notably the French revolution. Also, there are plenty of technical aspects that make the Palais-Royal an exceptional heritage site, and on a human scale. We are on the Columns of Buren, a work also symbolic, in that it is always open to the public, it is already in sharing – because, the goal of this project is to come together, to all look in the same direction, for a moment. So, there were all the essential things that make this project possible, as much technically, as symbolically, metaphorically, and from the point of view of an audience, outside, passing by, stopping, looking.
How to create, prepare, rehearse such a performance?
It’s complex. And this is also the goal of this project: we offer the viewer our rehearsals, which are always visible (a motorcycle passes, editor’s note). There is a form of exposure, where spectators see the spectacle being created before their eyes. It allows us to show people the difficulty of such a project, and it’s magnificent to be out in the open. There, it’s great what’s happening, because we’ve been at the Palais-Royal for two weeks, so sometimes people applaud us, while we’re in the middle of work – something is happening, there is direct feedback which is enjoyable for the performers – that encourages us. Then, the public sees the time required for such performances, that preparing a very short musical phrase will, sometimes, take an hour. Finally, the goal is also to share the fact that creation requires time, energy, passion, to everyone and for free.
What place does music have in this show?
Very important. As much as I have indoor shows which are sometimes very dramatic, here we are in an open-air acrobatic ballet. A ballet linked by sport and circus. It’s written in music, very precisely. There is some of the music written by my composer, Arthur Bison, who composes the music for all my shows, and, in order to have a common collective memory, I also use the recomposed version of the Four Seasons of Vivaldi by Max Richter, a contemporary composer. These are melodies present to everyone. A link is then forged between the virtuosity of the musicians and the acrobats.
Do you feel any nervousness specific to this type of show?
What is very intense is the little time we have. For me, it requires being a kind of conductor who never stops giving directions to everyone. I write very specifically regarding music, so I spend a lot of time breaking it down, giving real musical timing. I run in all directions. For them, for people who come from parkour, it’s a real challenge to enter the artistic field, to be on music and to count; they are not real dancers, so there is transmission. The difficulty for them is to conserve energy, because what they do requires a lot of energy: they jump from great heights onto roofs. Of course, we don’t take risks, we secure everything, but the notion of risk is always present, with the void next to us – hence the stress, yes, of saying to ourselves: are we going to be ready on time ? It’s a big project to write, even if it only lasts half an hour, it’s rich.
Horizon Palais-Royal in three words?
Vertigo, freedom and hope!
Horizon Palais-Royal, 1 performance on September 15 at 7:00 p.m., 2 performances on September 16 at 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. and 2 performances on September 17, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Palais-Royal in Paris, 8 rue De Montpensier, 75001 Paris.
Free entry via Place Colette 1 hour before each performance.
By Alexis Lacourte
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