In this creation, you imagine a new religion for our times. Why choose this theme?
Joris Lacoste : Religion here is less a theme than a fictional framework. What interests me first and foremost is the question of heterogeneity: I seek a way to make different modes of being, levels of reality, subjects, registers, and regimes of discourse—elements that are extremely varied, sometimes even opposed to one another—coexist on stage, in order to reflect the kaleidoscopic nature of our world. I therefore imagined a fictional new religion that would aim to be as welcoming as possible, one that would celebrate “all the things of the world,” all forms of life and non-life, that would accept everything and reject nothing. Above all, it is a device that allows us to embrace heterogeneity and carry out all kinds of theatrical operations on stage. For religion means liturgy, and nothing is more theatrical than liturgy, rituals, and ceremonies.
Why does this notion of heterogeneity fascinate you so?
We are at a moment in human history when our modes of existence and experiences of the world have never been so diverse and heterogeneous. Our collective condition is that of a heterogeneous, fragmented, and multiple “we”. Our modes of existence are made up of a plurality of ways of being, identities, wills, and interests that shape the representations we have of ourselves. Our individual experiences of the world are likewise marked by diversity: like the feed on our social networks, we are traversed by the most varied flows of information, moving from news about Gaza to videos of kittens or the latest track by Taylor Swift. These things follow one another and clash in our minds in a kind of abruptly edited reel we’ve gradually become accustomed to. But how can we articulate all these practices, beliefs, references, and experiences without homogenizing them, and in a spirit of joy? I believe this presents a particular challenge for the stage: to make theatre a space where such plurality can be embraced, by attempting to represent as many realities as possible at once; to create a utopian place where these multiple dimensions can coexist, engage in dialogue, be experienced together simultaneously—and even, perhaps, come together into a form of harmony and intelligibility.
What is the meaning of the title, Nexus de l’adoration (Nexus of adoration)?
A nexus is a point of connection where multiple elements meet. It is a term used in network technology, but also in science fiction or certain video games, where it often designates a portal allowing passage into parallel universes. Depending on the context, it can also have a spiritual connotation. I thought this term could be the name that the followers of this new cult would give to their ceremonies. Their main ritual consists of naming "all the things of the world" until the end of time. The idea is to create this impression of totality, of a world from which nothing is a priori excluded, where everything can have a place, from everyday objects to fictional characters, feelings, sensations, historical events, landscapes, concepts, animals, companies, people, moments of the day... The officiants we see on stage thus begin with an enumeration, a litany, which gradually unfolds in various textual, musical, theatrical, and performative forms, borrowing from all sorts of representational codes, whether pop songs, stand-up comedy, intimate storytelling, lectures, music video choreography... The advantage of the ceremony is that it is a very welcoming form: one can sing, speak, dance, tell stories, give speeches, fall into a trance... It is a place of performativity more than representation.
Is Nexus de l’adoration more a performance than a play?
My background is in poetry. What has always interested me in theatre is less the idea of narration than that of action: making things exist in the present, making them active, even when they come from the past. Within the collective project Encyclopédie de la Parole (2007–2020), I worked for a long time using sound recordings collected from all spheres of life, mixing extremely varied types of speech, ranging from everyday language to political discourse, from poetic recitation to yoga classes, including synthetic voices and voice messages. I learned to make all kinds of realities coexist on the same stage, realities that ordinarily only meet in our heads or on our screens. From these sources, I composed plays in which I asked performers to musically reproduce these recordings. Thus, disparate and normally incompatible situations followed one another on stage. The whole challenge was to make words, worlds, and contexts that normally do not meet, dialogue. This research transformed my understanding of theatre and the theatrical relationship, notably because I realised that people in the audience rarely reacted unanimously: for some, it was when they recognised a certain YouTuber, while for others it was a sports commentary or a philosophy class. Everyone has their own references, their own places of identification and projection. That’s when I thought there might be something interesting to explore in the theatrical relationship: instead of seeking a general and homogeneous language, let’s multiply very specific objects of identification. No one is sensitive in the same way to everything, but everyone attends and participates in the celebration of each other’s objects.
Would it be correct to call Nexus de l’adoration musical theatre?
For a long time, I was reluctant to define Nexus de l’adoration as musical theatre. It is a show where we sing and dance; it has all the classic ingredients, even if formally we are probably quite far from what is generally expected of this theatrical genre, that is, a narration, characters, songs that follow one another very quickly within a certain musical and choreographic aesthetic… Here, we use several of these elements but without strictly adhering to them. That said, I like the kind of communion that musical theatre achieves with the audience. Music, singing, and dancing, through their effects of repetition and engagement, open up the possibility of non-authoritarian adhesion and offer everyone a way to participate without stepping out of their roles as spectators. There is something very inclusive for the audience. And in its own way, it is also a kind of ceremony.
Interview conducted by Vanessa Asse in January 2025.