HomeGestes scénographiques : au delà des gestes de manipulation, figurer autrement

Gestes scénographiques : au delà des gestes de manipulation, figurer autrement

Gestes et processus dans les arts de la marionnette - volet 2

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Published on Monday, January 27, 2025

Abstract

À la suite des deux journées du volet 1, ce volet 2 des Gestes et processus dans les arts de la marionnette entend désormais étudier la place de la scénographie en arts de la marionnette selon un spectre large : de la maquette dans l’atelier, au castelet traditionnel en passant par les plateaux immenses ou infiniment petits, jusqu’aux projections lumineuses et de mapping.

Announcement

Présentation

À la suite des deux journées du volet 1, ce volet 2 des Gestes et processus dans les arts de la marionnette entend désormais étudier la place de la scénographie en arts de la marionnette selon un spectre large : de la maquette dans l’atelier, au castelet traditionnel en passant par les plateaux immenses ou infiniment petits, jusqu’aux projections lumineuses et de mapping.

Comment scénographier la marionnette ? Quelles sont les problématiques spécifiques que les arts de la marionnette soulèvent pour les scénographes et constructeur⸱rices ? Et comment est alors pensée la place des marionnettistes dans ces espaces ? En prenant appui sur la définition du geste propre aux études en danse (Christine Roquet) et en anthropologie (Marcel Jousse) où le geste est présenté comme signifiant, intentionnel, chargé, là où le mouvement serait essentiellement fonctionnel, quels sont les gestes du⸱de la scénographe contemporain⸱e pour les arts de la marionnette ? Boîte, loupe, forêt de cordages, castelet, écran,... les espaces scénographiques pour marionnette regroupent les problématiques des objets et des corps à animer, éclairer, mettre en mouvement, ainsi que les jeux de révélation/dissimulation. Par les gestes de scénographie, l’espace marionnettique est habité voire hanté des présences réelles ou induites, matérielles ou fantasmées.

Programme

Mercredi 29 janvier 2025

La Misha, salle de conférence

9h00-9h15 : accueil café

Ouverture 

9h15-9h30 : remerciements, mot d’ouverture

  • Marie Garré-Nicoara, maîtresse de conférences (Université d’Artois)
  • Oriane Maubert, maîtresse de conférences (Université de Strasbourg)
  • Shirley Niclais, maîtresse de conférences (Université de Poitiers)
  • Gauthier Bazelle, directeur-adjoint du Pôle International de la Marionnette Jacques-Félix

9h30-10h00 : Research scientific introduction Marie Garré Nicoara, Oriane Maubert et Shirley Niclais

Session 1 – Huge stages for puppetry

Modération : Oriane Maubert

  • 10h00-11h00 : Dialogue : spaces that come alive Aurélien Bory, metteur en scène de la Compagnie 111, directeur du théâtre Garonne – scène européenne & Aurélie Coulon, maîtresse de conférences en Arts du Spectacle (Université de Strasbourg)
  • 11h00-11h30 : Puppet as a place Renaud Herbin, marionnettiste, directeur de la Compagnie l’Étendue

The intimate relationship with the abstraction of space and material keeps the figure on the threshold of life and animation. Thinking about puppetry means identifying its relationship to its environment. How does the manufacturing of stage space, like an image in transformation, become a phenomenon that amplifies what puppetry can do: to connect us with the place of origins, to connect what is seen with an off-screen to be guessed at? The material comes to life from the place, and the enigma appears, not to be solved but to be deciphered.

11h30-12h00 : échanges

12h00-13h45 : déjeuner

Session 2 – The model, the manufacturing workshop: thinking about stage space from the puppetry’s perspective

  • Modération : Léa Romoli, doctorante, attachée Temporaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche (Université de Strasbourg)
  • 13h45-14h45 : Dialogue : Dialogue : to create a scenography for puppetry Nicolas Saelens, metteur en scène, directeur de la Compagnie Théâtre Inutile, président de THEMAA & Antoine Vasseur, scénographe

This is a dialogue about the process of making a scenography and designing puppets. Starting from the idea that puppetry is an art of constraint, how can scenography design respond to this? And how can scenographic thinking give rise to puppet forms?

14h45-15h00 : échanges

15h00-15h15 : pause

  • 15h15-15h45 : Matérialité, construction et espaces des marionnettes en jeu : études de cas du théâtre de marionnettes polonais contemporain/Performing puppet materiality, construction and space: case studies from the Polish Puppet Theatre Marzenna Wiśniewska, Professeure (Université Nicolaus Copernicus, Toruń)

The aim of this paper is to discuss selected phenomena in Polish puppet theatre, illustrating three gestures in the art of puppet theatre: 1. the selection of material as a source of ideas for puppet performance, 2. the search for innovation in puppet construction, 3. the play with the theatre stage and the concept of space. In the light of these topics, I would like to take up themes such as puppet assemblages, haunted puppet space, and puppet as reception space

  • 15h45-16h15 : Transformation of the canon: the space of the vertep chest as a platform for artistic resistance by Ukrainian puppeteers of the soviet era Daria Ivanova-Hololobova, docteure en Arts du Spectacle, présidente de l’Unima Ukraine, enseignante-chercheuse (Université de Théâtre, Cinéma et Télévision de Kiev I.K Karpenko Kary, et Université Heinrich Heine de Düsseldorf)

The presentation will explore the space of the traditional nativity scene in Ukrainian puppet theatre (« vertep ») in the circumstances of ideological censorship by the Soviet authorities and cultural resistance of Ukrainian puppeteers. It raises the question of political narrative in puppetry, in particular how the canonical puppetry space can be reinterpreted and used to reflect socio-political moods in society in modern times. To analyse the proposed topic, examples from the performances of the puppet theatres of Khmelnytskyi and Poltava by the Ukrainian director Leonid Popov are offered.

16h15-16h30 : échanges

16h30-16h45 : pause

  • 16h45-17h45 :Dialogue : « A play as popular as a French fry bar ! » : resetting of the play « The nickle-plated feet on the road » Emmanuelle Ebel-Jost, docteure en Arts du Spectacle & Grégoire Callies, marionnettiste, metteur en scène, directeur du Théâtre du Chemin Creux

The manufacturing process of Grégoire Callies' show Les Pieds nickelés en vadrouille is marked by multiple scenographic reseting, depending on the project's economic, human, political and artistic dimensions, as well as the artist's perspectives in terms of his identities as creator, company director, partner of a venue and then director of a CDN. The aim is to consider how roles and environments impact on the way we think about stage space.

17h45-18h00 : échanges

18h00 : fin de la journée, dîner pour les communicant·es

Jeudi 30 janvier 2025

La Misha, salle de conférence (matin)

salle Büchner (après-midi)

9h00-9h30 : accueil café

Session 3 – Infra-spaces : the box, the back of the hand, the very little stage

Modération : Oriane Maubert

  • 9h30-10h00 : Home: migrant stages, migrant puppeteteers and the creation of micro-puppet homes Cariad Astles, Maîtresse de conférences (Université d’Exeter et Royal Central School of Speech and Drama de Londres)

Scenographers build stages for puppetry, which become their « homes », adapted to their particular technique and performance requirements. These stages evoke worlds, or « homes » which the puppets inhabit (Orenstein 2023). They are often drawn from traditional practices, but frequently adapted to practical and social requirements. Glove and rod puppets traditionally inhabit a booth, shadow puppets a screen, table-top puppets a surface, and so on. There are now a multitude of potential and actual performance « homes » for puppets used in design and spectacle in global contexts. But what becomes of the « home » when migrant and refugee puppeteers are forced to travel in search of new homes, often leaving behind not only their own homes, but the designed and performed homes of their puppets? This presentation will explore how migrant puppeteers use limited and tiny spaces to recall, evoke, question and establish questions of « home » for both puppets and themselves, and to develop new « gestures » and terminologies of design and concept within their performance work.

  • 10h00-10h30 : The augmented body : hybrid forms of mechatronics in Marta Cuscunà's puppet theater Francesca Di Fazio, docteure en Arts du Spectacle (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier3), postdoctorante (Université de Bologne)

In the collaboration between Italian puppeteer Marta Cuscunà, scenographer Paola Villani and assistant Marco Rogante, the manufacturing of puppets constitutes the scenography itself. After defining the main goal of the show, prototypes are created, always closely linked to the dramaturgical meaning of the plays. Manipulated remotely with joysticks, they build animatronic puppets that blur the boundaries between human and mechanical bodies, creating an « augmented » body.

10h30-10h45 : échanges

10h45-11h00 : pause

Session 4 – Immaterial scenographies : from light to projections, blurring the boundaries of space

Modération : Shirley Niclais

  • 11h00-11h30 : De l'extrême matérialité de la scénographie au tunnel perceptif/From the extreme materiality of scenography to the perceptive tunnel  Pauline Vanesse, doctorante en Arts du Spectacle (Universités de Lille et de Strasbourg)

The digital scenography in David Ayoun and Esther Mollo's Les ruines circulaires (« The circular ruins ») acts as a screen between bodies that manipulate on sight. On stage, the performers' movements make visible body avatars on six tablets. In the audience, a stage manager coordinates the interactive system. Both a live recording and a support for motion capture puppeteering appearances, the functional scenography inhibits spectators' progress inside the system, while inducing a new kinesic engagement. Kaleidoscopic, the play produces a state of the body that I propose to call connective tissue. With this new perceptive acuity, the gap between the stage and the spectator's body embodies: space « as a hidden feature of movement » (Rudolf Laban, Espace dynamique).

  • 11h30-12h00 : How can immaterial scenography and the « Miniature Box » framework redefine spatial perception and narrative in puppetry?  Niall Fallon, artiste physique et marionnettiste

The paper uses my project Tracing Spaces as a case study in immaterial scenography, exploring how live projections, miniatures, and multi-camera perspectives redefine spatial perception and narrative. It examines the « miniature box » framework, blurring front stage and backstage to position the puppet as a site of visual trickery and emotional resonance. By deconstructing theatrical mechanics, it interrogates how puppetry can deepen engagement, focusing on my concept of « the outside coming in ».

12h00-12h15 : échanges

12h15-14h00 : déjeuner

Session 5 – Scenographic laboratories gestures and processes on trial

  • 14h00-15h00 : Atelier : Au laboratoire du feu/In the fire lab Rafi Martin, marionnettiste, anthropologue-sociologue

This workshop offers an introduction to an ongoing artistic investigation into fire, questioning 400,000 years of exchanges with this element, and investigating artisanal gestures, the refuge of daydream and the transformative power of firing. This laboratory invites participants to invoke this element, to rediscover its capacity to act and accompany thought, particularly in a region where the singularity of some active fires enables field research that must then be transposed to the stage, where preserving the material's performativity is a challenge.

15h00-15h30 : échanges

15h30-16h00 : pause

  • 16h00-17h00 : Our fragile things, in the creation process Laura Elands, marionnettiste, Théâtre de l'Heure Bleue

Meeting and felting workshop. On the eve of a new creation combining puppetry and textile arts, Laura Elands shares her questions and her work process: how is vulnerability experienced? Are we capable of welcoming it? In the center, a puppet is moved by all that surrounds it, by the impressions of its environment. It is an “empty painting” on which the world expresses itself, and can be considered part of the scenographic space. How do you interact with this body-space?

17h00-17h30 : échanges

17h30 : clôture du colloque

Places

  • MISHA - 5 All. du Général Rouvillois
    Strasbourg, France (67)

Event attendance modalities

Full on-site event


Date(s)

  • Wednesday, January 29, 2025
  • Thursday, January 30, 2025

Keywords

  • geste, processus, marionnette, art, scénographie, espace, figuration, manipulation, lieu, danse

Contact(s)

  • Shirley Niclais
    courriel : shirley [dot] niclais [at] univ-poitiers [dot] fr

Information source

  • Shirley Niclais
    courriel : shirley [dot] niclais [at] univ-poitiers [dot] fr

License

CC-BY-4.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0 .

To cite this announcement

Shirley Niclais, Oriane Maubert, Marie Garre Nicoara, « Gestes scénographiques : au delà des gestes de manipulation, figurer autrement », Conference, symposium, Calenda, Published on Monday, January 27, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/1362a

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