Can all things be classified in two categories: those that go “poc poc” and those that don't go “poc poc”? Hard to answer without trying. The protagonists of Germinal create a world from scratch – here a bare stage – and come up against problems as absurd as they are fundamental, causing laughter and amazement. They aren't really humans, or even actors, before having discovered thought, the means of communicating it and of therefore being able to form a community. A micro-population whose members grope and bump into each other, find and brag, sometimes defy, but unfailingly build together. Little by little, they gain agility and control of technologies, going as far as endangering the stability and coherence of the environment they have built. For this creation, Halory Goerger and Antoine Defoort have methodically consulted all the Wikipedia pages on information theories, the organization of knowledge as well as the history of science and techniques. In the same way as a video game like Civilization, the actors unblock, one by one, all the elements of knowledge needed to go from the Stone Age to a rocket launch. The trajectory of the four comrades of Germinal is less spectacular, but just as strewn with obstacles and unexpected developments. Without seeming like they have touched it, they accomplish a saga in a postage stamp, in which the subjects are quantic stability, taxonomy, God and the theatre. A theatre that the four interpreters discover and build at the same time as they discover and build the world. Because Germinal also has something of a “large socialist fresco” about it, as Antoine Defoort and Halory Goerger note, in the examination they propose of the forming of a collection and the negotiations that mark out its evolution. RB
Distribution
conception Antoine Defoort et Halory Goerger
lighting, video Sébastien Bausseron
sound Robin Mignot
lighting collaboration Annie Leuridan
artistic collaboration Julien Fournet
programmation Maël Teillant
with Arnaud Boulogne, Ondine Cloez, Antoine Defoort, Halory Goerger
Production
production L'Amicale de production
coproduction La Biennale de la Danse de Lyon, Les Subsistances (Lyon), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Bruxelles), Buda Kunstencentrum (Courtrai), Kunstencentrum Vooruit (Gand), Le Vivat Scène conventionnée danse et théâtre (Armentières), le phénix Scène nationale de Valenciennes, Le Manège.Mons/CECN/Technocité, alkantara festival (Lisbonne), Théâtre national de Bordeaux en Aquitaine, Théâtre de la Manufacture Centre dramatique national Nancy-Lorraine, Festival Baltoscandal (Rakvere, Estonie), Noorderzon Performing Arts Festival (Groningen), Rotterdamse Schouwburg (Rotterdam) et NXTSTP with the support of Programme Culture de l'Union européenne
with the support of la Région Nord-Pas de Calais, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication DRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, la Ville de Lille ainsi que du programme européen apap/Performing Europe (DGEAC-Programme Culture)