EAR THEM

Duration: approx. 40 min

Musical theatre piece for 2 percussionist-performers.

In 3 parts: Resonating Coït - The Medusa / Scratch / One day my princess...

- Charlotte Torres: concept, composition and stage direction

- Sabeth Louise Weibel: fashion design

- Juliana Santacruz and Romane Bouffioux – Projet Ohr: performance -

- Production team: Projet Ohr and Ch. Torres

New Music theatre piece for 2 percussionists-performance.

Ear Them is first and foremost a multi-disciplinary collaboration, music and fashion, around the representation of the strong woman in art.

The piece is in three movements, punctuated by numerous references and tributes: There are the mythological figures of the first feminists, including Medusa and the Amazon; but also, Niki de Saint Phall, V. Despentes, Roxanne Shante...

In Ear Them, we find much of the popular art of small-scale street theatre: a duo on stage, a passage through the audience, puppet theatre and mime, the use of foley, sound and visual illusions, short scenes and costume changes behind a hand-made curtain.

The narrative moves from simple description to silent satire.

The piece belongs to the genre of new music theatre.

Acoustic and electric sounds give the non-verbal theatricality its full musical dimension.

It is the music, rather than a libretto with text, that justifies the theatricality and organizes the whole dramaturgy.

Each scene has its own costume and its own music, whose surrealism and absurdity invite reflection.

EAR THEM offers a committed and satirical vision of new music theatre.

Synopsis:

1st movement: Resonating Coït - The Medusa Approx. 13 min

With texts by V. Despentes, King Kong Theory.

Two performers on stage:

- A visual and sound installation: a real woman's resonating.

The Medusa, whose body, hair and sex become cables, microphones and loudspeakers.

She is the mythical figure, frontal, wired and passive.

- Behind her: the neutral performer, a feminine Perseus, active, who makes the Medusa sound.

The Medusa is played, touched and set in motion.

Audio male - Audio female / Active - Passive / Dominant - Dominated / Input - Output...

The electrical and technical sound design is a metaphor for the myth.

2nd movement: Scratch - Tribute to Niki de Saint Phall

Approx. 17 min

- With samples used as sound quotations: - interview with Jacqueline François and “the washerwomen”, - voice of Roxanne Shante in Roxanne, Sydne Rome Aerobic- Fitness Dancing.

- With video sets and lights projected directly onto the performers.

Visually, the audience will recognize the famous work “Saint Sébastien or Portrait of my lover”, by the French-American sculptor, painter and filmmaker, Niki de Saint Phall, which Ch. Torres transforms and revisits.

Two puppets, half human - half instrument, with turntable heads and bass drum bellies, long shirts and ties.

The stage is visually reminiscent of a sixties retro aesthetic.

The performers speak in squeaks and squeaks of vinyl, and their voices become scratches.

The piece uses a new Street Art technology: portable turning tables - Portablism. Completely surreal, the bodies are transformed and the voices instrumented, and we no longer know which is the right way round, the spoken word from the noisy... Where are we?

This 2nd mvt is a moving sound painting... nothing more... shhh... we watch and listen.

Sound sketch and preliminary study by Ch.Torres

3rd movement: One day my princess... Approx. 8 min

In a nod to the fairy tales of our childhood, "One day my prince will come...".

In the hope that little girls will dream of being Prince Charming on horseback, master of her own destiny, and not the prisoner princess dependent on the prince who rescues her.

In my piece, it's the princess who is on horseback, and who even becomes a horse! The performers are the rider, the Amazon, the cowboy woman, the horsewoman. The horsewoman is also today's modern woman, the one who runs, trots and gallops, carrying children, shopping, family and the world on her shoulders... and a successful career. The cowboy woman of our time. The modern-day superwoman.

Sometimes tired, sometimes more workhorse than racehorse, or simply a bit of both...

One day my princess... is a scene full of humor. The musical develops like a film sound effects session, with a noisy performer and a gestural performer.

Sketches by Sabeth Weibel