La vie est faite de morceaux qui ne se joignent pas

This new programming by France Culture in the Cour du Musée Calvet is based on the idea that literature, poetry, and theatre are not only weapons but also a way to distance oneself, to “disorient” oneself from current events. “A great writer must dare venture out like Don Quixote,” says Enrique Vila-Matas, special guest for this programme. The audience is therefore invited to a wild ride alongside some emblematic works, in the language of Cervantès but also in that of Diderot. With humour and whimsy, guaranteed.

La vie est faite de morceaux qui ne se joignent pas by Fabrice Melquiot and Sophie Berger

A radio tour through the memories of Festival audiences. Memories of shows: expectations, shocks, disappointments, surprises. How do you become an actor in your own memory? What if all life really were a stage? Writing in situ, on the spot, in five days, four hands.

La vie est faite de morceaux qui ne se joignent pas is a radio writing performance dreamt up by sound director Sophie Berger and writer Fabrice Melquiot, who have already written a four-handed cycle entitled Tout terriblement, broadcast on France Culture in June 2024. This new radio drama is based on an exploration, using sound and words, of the memories of some of the spectators at the Festival d'Avignon. Meeting, listening to, watching and trying to understand someone through their memories of shows: expectations, shocks, disappointments, surprises. So many artifices to nourish a reality, so many borrowed identities to approach an intimate self. Tell me what kind of theatre you like, and I'll tell you who you are, who you were, who you could be. Here, the fragmentation of a being is conveyed through the senses and the stage, through traces and the story we tell. So how do we become actors in our own memory? How do you make your memory a promise to keep? How do you say: yes, that's me, that kaleidoscope, let's say; and it's not just the past. Written in situ, on the spot, over five days, four hands and a live performance on 7 July in the courtyard of the Musée Calvet.

Sophie Berger is a sound producer and author. Her sound pieces for radio - France Culture, Arte Radio - are above all an invitation to listen to the world (Cargo, Loire...). Pierre Schaeffer Prize - Phonurgia Nova 2013. She is also a sound designer for performing arts and installations. Her first novel, Banc de brume, was published in January 2024, coll. Blanche, Gallimard.

Fabrice Melquiot is a writer, director and performer. He has written some sixty plays, graphic novels for young people and collections of poetry. He has also written some twenty radio dramas and songs. Today, he is one of the most widely performed and translated contemporary French playwrights. His work regularly wins awards (SACD, Académie française, Syndicat de la Critique, etc.). From 2012 to 2021, he directed the Théâtre Am Stram Gram in Geneva. Since 2021, he has been a founding member and artistic director of Cosmogama, a workshop for the creation of multidisciplinary artistic forms. His first novel, Écouter les sirènes, will be published by Actes Sud in September 2024.

Text by Fabrice Melquiot and Sophie Berger
With Sophie Berger, Fabrice Melquiot and a chorus of spectators: Noah Di Menza, Nadjette Boughalem, Didier Luttenbacher, Sarah Momesso, et Cisco
Directed by Laure Egoroff
Assisted director Claire Chaineaux