Mue - Première mélopée

Since 1990, Jean Lambert-wild has been staging his own texts and those of writers such as Seneca, Gombrowicz, Bond, Kafka, Alloula. While being the associate artist at Granit, the Scène Nationale de Belfort since 1998, he is also artistic director at the Coopérative 326 which he set up with musician Jean-Luc Therminarias. The idea was for it to be a sort of community where it would possible to invent new narrative, scenographic, poetical, musical, choreographic or plastic art perspectives, the Coopérative abides by the same codes as those of sailing ships, and in so doing breaking the traditional theatre-company framework. Since 2001, the members of the Coopérative have taken part in the creation of, amongs other things, Orgia, Spaghetti's Club and Crise de Nerfs-Parlez-Moi d'Amour. Making use of the possibilities offered by new technologies, whether in sound, image or lighting, the work of Jean Lambert-wild and his companions is aimed at creating a mental universe by developing sound and visual effects which take the reality out of physical space and allow people to enter into another world. Are we in reality or somewhere imaginary ? Most certainly it is a kind of theatre where magic is at home and tells of a shaken-up world where humour has to keep despair company and cunningness enables people to combat the threats which loom over humans and over art.


Jean Lambert-wild takes the audience outside of the City of Avignon and its traditional Festival venues, to the Château de Saumane and its leafy park. That is the first part of the journey and that leads to the second during which we hear the words of the Xavantes First Peoples, and under the night sky, share their dreams in a moment elsewhere, on the other side of the Atlantic, in the middle of the Mato Grosso in Brazil. For it was in a dream that J. Lambert-Wild first met the Etênhiritipa village community, and he returned three times to forge a bond that enabled him to compose this poetic and musical "Wara", a piece for nine voices, percussion, electronic voice, balloon forest and sound installation. The Wara – the elders council - is in the centre of the village, a meeting place for Xavantes – A'uweh Uptabi, the "people of truth" -, who assemble twice a day to talk and to take decisions affecting the community. A place for collective speech where in contrast to our societies which favour individual speech, the words of the main orator mix with comments from the crowd. Spectators are invited to the circle of the Wara to rediscover the dreams that keep alive the bond which unites us, rendered by the members of the Xavanates community and Coopérative 326. This is not an ethnographical voyage but a dreamy one, so that we can discover the Xavantes, people who maintain their traditions for future generations, and with this encounter offer us a different path to help us to reconsider our relationship with the world, "a path that we thought was lost forever".

composition Jean-Luc Therminarias
stage direction Jean Lambert-Wild
Cast : Marcos Sibru Xavante, Paulo Francisco Supretaprã, Ronaldo Waato Xavante, Mario Wadzaitiwe, Robertinho Waorinatse, Bénédicte Debilly, Jacqueline Humbert, Benoît Lambert, Marc le Glatin, Laure Thièry
Percussionnist : Jean-François Oliver
Electronic voice : Stéphane Pelliccia
Text and et director : Jean Lambert-wild
Music : Jean-Luc Therminarias
Lighting : Renaud Lagier
Costumes : Françoise Luro
Production coordinators in Brazil : Julia Gomes, Cristina Floria
Production coordinators in the Aldeia Xavante : Cristina Floria, Paulo Supretaprã

En compagnie : de l'Adami
Production déleguée : le Granit - Scène nationale de Belfort
Coproduction : Coopérative 326, Le Granit - Scène nationale de Belfort, MC93 - Maison de la Culture de la Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny), Festival d'Avignon, CDDB - Théâtre de Lorient, La Halle aux grains - Scène nationale de Blois, GMEM Centre national de Création musicale de Marseille, Ars Numerica, l'UTBM, la CCAS
Avec le soutien : des Consulats de France de São Paulo et de Rio de Janeiro, des SESC de São Paulo, de Riocenacontemporânea Festival, de la convention AFAA - Drac Région Franche-Comté, du programme “Tintas Frescas”, de Brésil-Brésils (année du Brésil en France 2005), de la Dicream et de la Spedidam
Remerciements : à la communauté Xavante de l'Aldeia de Pimentel Barbosa et à la Funai
Accueil au festival d'Avignon avec le soutien : du Conseil général de Vaucluse, de la communauté de Communes du pays des Sorgues et des monts de Vaucluse et la Commune de Saumane