Avignon: the incredible "architecto-choreography" of Phia Ménard "for Europe"
French choreographer and director Phia Ménard presented her “Trilogy of Immoral Tales (for Europe)” at the Festival d'Avignon 2021. © Siegfried Forster / RFI
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
9 mins
This Sunday July 25, the 75th Festival d'Avignon will close its doors.
Just before, the French choreographer and director Phia Ménard presents at 5 pm for the sixth time her much applauded “Trilogy of immoral stories (for Europe)” at the Opéra Confluence.
A huge allegory of a failing Europe.
An unprecedented theatrical fight, a great challenge for the spectators, an indescribable artistic construction, at the height of the Tower of Babel, to ward off the predicted catastrophe.
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RFI
: In your
Trilogy of Immoral Tales (for Europe)
, architecture practically plays the main role.
Have you invented a new genre: architecto-choreography
?
Phia Ménard
:
[Laughs] No, I don't think so.
It is much more a scenographic work which supports the point.
It is a moving scenography telling what we are going through or an interpretation of what we are going through.
It is an almost “operatic” form of theater, because everything is in the form of the landscape.
We approach the opera.
In the title appears in parentheses
(for Europe)
.
Europe, is this a theme that haunts you
?
Precisely, I chose the theme “Europe” without the “L '”.
I am a convinced, militant European.
When we talk about the European question, we always say "Europe" as we say "The Other".
If we managed to say "Europe", as if it were our own first name, perhaps we would start to share with others, with everything that brings us together, us Europeans: the possibility of working together, of imagining a other society than simply an economic Europe.
A truly human Europe.
The Immoral Tales speak of the desire for a Europe.
“The trilogy of immoral tales (for Europe)”, by Phia Ménard, at the Festival d'Avignon 2021. © Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d'Avignon
At the start of the play, the board is empty. At the back of the scene, we see a woman who remains seated for a long time. And when she gets up, we see a kind of warrior between Amazon and Batman or rather Batwoman. Who is this woman
?
She's a form of Athena, a punk Athena. A very symbolic figure, because she will build the Parthenon [
a Greek temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, considered the patroness of their city, Editor's note
]. This Athena receives a Parthenon "made by Ikea" (
a cardboard kit to make a "
Carthenon
"
), to build yourself. This symbolic figure of punk is from my generation, from the 1980s, the era of the counter-culture at the time of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and the Chicago boys. The punks had a precursor message: neoliberal society has no future. It is only consumption. This punk Athena figure wears it all.
The evolution of the piece is closely linked to space and construction. We go from the hut to the Tower of Babel, passing through the Greek Parthenon to the European construction. Is this a way of saying that catastrophes are always caused by men who think they are God
?
This question could be there, but it is rather the question: what is European spirituality?
This desire to escape violence, war.
The three immoral tales show that European society aspires to peace.
But, she is constantly confronted with a desire that she cannot reconcile.
The Tower of Babel is there to remind us.
We feel like we know a lot and we would like to find someone to save us.
However, the rain reminds us that nothing is under control.
Man must be much more humble.
The play is also about power.
She talks about patriarchal power, the power of money. There is this idea of necropolitics [
sovereignty ultimately resides in the power to decide who can live and who must die
] developed by political scientist and historian Achille Mbembe. In the second part of the show,
Temple Père
, we see that the slaves who climb this tower do not rebel. In the necropolitics, that is to say the politics of today, we no longer rebel in the face of absolutely dreadful things. This piece was born in 2013, when the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed in Dhaka. A fast fashion clothing monster who was there to make clothes for the Western world. I am also thinking of this explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020, where a huge part of the Lebanese capital was completely razed to the ground. It hit the headlines for two days and then we completely forgot about it. This is considered today almost as normal collateral damage. It is this place that interests me to touch. We are uncomfortable.Western and European society finds itself in this form of decline because it realizes its lack of humanity, its lack of empathy.
“The trilogy of immoral tales (for Europe)”, by Phia Ménard, at the Festival d'Avignon 2021. © Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d'Avignon
At one point in the play, machines take the place of God
: “
The machine is my lord and my master
”.
At the same time, there is a part where women are in charge.
Is this your vision for the future or the expected apocalypse
?
No. The role of the dominatrix played by the Icelandic artist and performer Inga Huld Hakonardottir in the
Father Temple
part
is to embody this question that I ask as a feminist: I don't know if a matriarchy is needed, but what is evident is that the patriarchy still does not collapse, because women also continue to maintain it. There is this question of responsibility that I also pose to women. At what point do we continue to maintain this company? Are we going to get rid of this fear of collapsing this society in order to finally be able to rebuild it? The destruction of works in the Trilogy speaks of that. We constantly quote "
The Machine is my master and my lord
".
It is also a reminder that we have put our lives in the hands of smartphones.
This is the "machine", this space of comfort becoming the place which governs us, which disturbs us.
I have no answers, I just have the idea of raising certain questions there.
Three hours of shows is very demanding for you as the main role, but also for the builders (acrobats) on stage, not to mention the audience. There are a lot of moments of suspense, of expectations, of moments when you don't understand anything, because everything is told in foreign languages without subtitles. What is your expectation from spectators
?
I have no requirements with regard to the spectators. I have my requirement to be in the place of sincerity with the spectator and to give him the possibility of escaping. Very concretely, three hours, I did not try to tell myself that it was the length that was going to be the subject. Matter itself needs this time. The construction time is long. The construction of humanity did not happen overnight. At one point, I offer the viewer the opportunity to calm down, to take the time. This does not necessarily mean an easy act, because he needs efficiency, he has been so used to efficiency in our society that he needs it. The suspense is the most interesting part of it. He means that we can wait for hours, because we know that something is going to happen. This notion is interesting:give back a value of suspense to things so "tiny". What is it like to look at a box that I'm building that is going to turn around. All of a sudden, the suspense is if I can turn it over. And it takes half an hour, just to get it to one side. In fact, we want to believe that it will be possible. And we doubt. At that point, we forget about the rest of the world.
“The trilogy of immoral tales (for Europe)”, by Phia Ménard, at the Festival d'Avignon 2021. © Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d'Avignon
► Phia Ménard:
Trilogy of immoral tales (for Europe), until July 25
at the Opéra Confluence, at the Festival d'Avignon 2021, before a major tour in France and Europe.
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