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Cie Philippe Saire
Av. de Sévelin 36
1004 Lausanne
Suisse

in permanent residency at Théâtre Sévelin 36

+41 21 620 00 12 info@philippesaire.ch

Newsletter

×

Cie Philippe Saire
Av. de Sévelin 36
1004 Lausanne
Suisse

in permanent residency at Théâtre Sévelin 36

+41 21 620 00 12 info@philippesaire.ch

Newsletter

Salle des Fêtes (Party Room) spectacle On tour ×

Duration: 50 min approx.

Salle des Fêtes (Party Room) is the fifth part in a series of choreographic works in convergence with visual arts. After the successes of Black Out, Vacuum and Hocus Pocus (young audience), this new opus starts from a fascination for party balloons.

“The disturbing, even nightmarish aspect that these figurative balloons, which at first glance looked joyful, intended for children, referencing cartoons and Disney… this threatening aspect disturbed me without my knowing why. It was, I think, the reversal of the function: the world of entertainment that could turn against us.”

In a circular stage space, two performers dance with balloons. Masked like bank robbers, their presence stands out in this world of popular entertainment and questions the tension between the captive and the captivated.
We do not really know who they are… Two clones charged with entertaining us, highlighting our gravity and our desire for elevation, performing a kind of ceremony, perhaps consoling us.

"As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.”
Blaise Pascal, Pensée (1670)


This research is based on images of balloon sellers in different cities, that I have been collecting for years during my travels and tours. A distant part of my childhood probably motivated this attraction. I filmed several of them, idly waiting for customers or trying to control a mass of balloons carried away by the wind. The wind gives them an autonomy that is both light and disturbing. It is then the very body that becomes fragile and tormented by this swirling mass that seems much more powerful than it is.
All of a sudden, the balloons strangely materialised these existential aspects of flight, the need for lightness and elevation. They combined power and fragility in the inflated object; they imprisoned the air, the breath, symbols of life. They fascinated and repelled. As I like to say of a show that touched me: they exceeded expectation. And it is this richness that drove me to work with these objects.

Philippe Saire


The work is structured in three acts:

  1. The disc on the floor, the dancers dancing in the periphery.
  2. The disc on the ceiling, containing a bunch of helium-filled balloons inflated at various levels: floating high, at mid-level, and low to the ground.
  3. Like a loop with the first one, the disc lowered back down to the ground.

Two versions depending on the size of the stage.
A circular structure in the centre, a disc/cover that contains the balloons and which at some point rises to the ceiling, along with the balloons, inflated with helium.
A bunch of balloons inflated at various levels: floating high, at mid-level, and low to the ground.
For big stages, the audience is seated in a circle on chairs on the stage. The audience is invited to the party.
For smaller stages, a more stripped-down, frontal version.


Concept and choreography
Philippe Saire


Choreography in collaboration with the dancers
Neal Maxwell, David Zagari


Assistant
Chady Abu-Nijmeh


Lights
Philippe Saire, Vincent Scalbert


Sound design
Philippe de Rham


Costumes
Isa Boucharlat


Dramaturgy advice
Roberto Fratini Serafide


Supports and partners
Cie Philippe Saire is governed by a joint support agreement between the City of Lausanne, Canton of Vaud and Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council; and is supported by Loterie Romande, by the Philanthropic Foundation Famille Sandoz, by Ernst Goehner Stiftung, by the Foundation Françoise Champoud, by the Foundation Corymbo and Migros Pour-Cent Culture. Cie Philippe Saire is in permanent residence at Théâtre Sévelin 36, Lausanne.


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Past dates

Lausanne (CH)
15.09.2021
26.09.2021
Paris (FR)
23.11.2021
26.11.2021
Barcelona (ES)
26.01.2023
27.01.2023
Villars-sur-Glâne (Suisse)
12.05.2023
13.05.2023