A firm believer in inter-disciplinary theatre since he started out, and since his outstanding first piece in 1980, Tabula Rasa, François Verret has conceived all his performances in close collaboration with other artists, be they actors, dancers, lighting specialists or plastic artists. Relying on important literary works such as recently L'Homme sans Qualités by Robert Musil for his piece Chantier-Musil (2003) or Absalom, Absalom ! by William Faulkner for Contrecoup (2004), this choreographer has developed a body of work of about twenty productions. The most recent is a solo piece, In the Back of My Mind (2006). In 1993, he founded the Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, a research centre, a performance space and a meeting place for both artists and their public. He was director of that project until 2000 when he resumed his work in the company. For François Verret, work begins with the space, from which he questions reality and continues his consideration of images and of the body, creating some sumptuous metaphors. They are like so many visions of the world, landscapes or poetic correspondences which unfold on stage in a particular logic, that of sensations.
In the whiteness of the stage, an empty space, like a blank page, a trampoline for adventure. Breaking away from the theories of and the references to the important writings which have been feeding François Verret's most recent performances, is, says the choreographer, a one-way move. There will be no going back. To make this surprise turn into a real voyage towards a distant horizon, he has taken on board this ghost ship that is the stage, a group of artists from many different places – actors, musicians, dancers, circus performers and other inventive buffoons, indispensable companions of creation, lighting specialists and stage designers. The aim of the project is to describe in dance, in movement, in acts, and in images, an insatiable pursuit; a real quest for existence which reveals itself to each of us in its enigmatic way. Sans retour is a movement at the prey of a big wave generated by nature that is silent and subject to the wildest elements. On the biggest waves, in the strongest winds, lashed against the stage writing and language, the actors take charge, bend, fall, tack, between heaviness and suspense. François Verret stages what words fail to say. A poetic seascape forged out of mysterious memories, shadows, traces, signs. Sans retour opens a space where imagination and its fate, that of creation as gesture towards utopia can be projected: a space for all where it will be possible to live in a different way together. IF
Distribution
stage direction François Verret
avec : Mathurin Bolze, Mitia Fodotenko, Marta Izquierdo Muñoz, Dimitri Jourde, Angela Laurier, Line Toermen and Dorothée Ningabire Munyaneza (vocals)
collaboration artistique : Marion Piry
conception du dispositif lumières : Christian Dubet
partition sonore : Alain Mahé
direction technique : Jean-Noël Launay
régie lumières : Gwendal Malard
construction : Vincent Gadras, Stéphane Potiron
costumes : Tifenn Morvan
tournage images : Jean-Marc Ogier
Production
Production : Théâtre National de Bretagne-Rennes, Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, Opéra de Lille, l'Apostrophe-Scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise, Compagnie FV
avec le soutien : de la Région Ile-de-France
François Verret est artiste associé au Théâtre national de Bretagne-Rennes
Le Festival d'Avignon reçoit le soutien de l'Adami pour la production