Superamas is a collective whose members stick to their principle of refusing individual recognition as a rejection of the media-centric cult of the artist as personality. By calling themselves Superamas – a term borrowed from astrophysics and which refers to galactic mounds and the way they migrate, as well as being the name of a supermarket chain in the southern states of the US – these French and Austrian artists have gained their reputation with various and varied creative projects including luminous installations (Diggin-up, Play-Mobile), videos (Billy Billy, Truck Station), performance art (Auto-mobile, Body Builder) and shows (Big 1st Episode - Artificial Intelligence/ Reality Show, Big 2nd Episode - Show/Business and Big 3rd Episode - Happy/end).
Their theatre concept, something of a semiotic analysis of our time, develops through the application of a joyful method of “un-editing”. The script is scenic and exalting; its task is to scan reality, to pick out the biggest, grossest and most incomprehensible mistakes in the language of multimedia.
Two scenes meet in Big 3rd Episode. The first highlights a group of boys who play music and rehearse. The second is about a group of girls at the gym. Suspense…
Off-beat characters, sharing confidences between bits of live music and extracts of films, are part of this unusual interwoven construction which connects or disconnects without warning. Based on the idea of a rehearsal, with its breaks, accidents and repetitions in minor variations, this is the third show of a series created by the Superamas collective company and its sub-title is, Happy/end. It is the last part of a trilogy where fantasy and play are staged in a particular way: the attitude is positively ingenuous, the actors in this tableau stretch humour and lightness to their limits. They make it a spoof, to make us think about the vanity of an era.
Attraction, mobilisation and other strange alliances between visual art, music, dance and social usage are the elements used by the Superamas collective for their investigation. They use a playful way to pose their question about the economic value of the body in the current media-heavy and technological context. Styles going off at tangents, conventions set free, redesigned in the most hybrid or uncomfortable places, all are part of this questioning. Seen through the mocking eye-glass of the various actors, this show, hoping to catch “l'air du temps”, goes through the looking-glass.
Distribution
mise en scène :Superamas
avec :Alix Eynaudi, Susi Wisiak, Agata Maszkiewicz et Superamas
voix de doublage :Susanne Bentley, Allen Brownes, Tim Crouch, Alexis Destoop, Ted Fletcher, Marianne Groves, Jennifer Lacey, Andros Zinsbrowne
Production
coproduction :Superamas, Parc de la Villette dans le cadre des Résidences d'Artistes 2006, Szene Salzburg, Buda Kunstencentrum (Kortrijk), Mousonturm (Francfort), Impulstanz (Vienne)
avec le soutien de :la Ville de Vienne et du ministère fédéral de l'Éducation, des Arts et de la Culture d'Autriche
avec le soutien de :la Région Île-de-France et du ministère de la Culture et de la Communication
avec l'aide de :l'Onda pour les surtitres