FURTHER AFIELD

Presented as part of the fiftieth edition of Festival de la Bâtie, this late-stage production by Robert Wilson draws its creative power from the polymorphic poetry of Fernando Pessoa. Like a magic mirror, Pessoa – Since I’ve Been Me illuminates the nuances of Wilson’s singular aesthetic: meticulous stagecraft, visionary fantasy and boundless imagination. Seven virtuosic performers, including Maria de Meideros, embody Pessoa and his heteronyms in a poetic, visually arresting mise en scène.

FURTHER AFIELD

Directed by Jean‑François Sivadier, this blistering staging of Thomas Bernhard’s Maître dissects a privileged couple’s corrosive vanity and the ideological masks that sustain them. The production balances bitter comedy and dark drama, driven by a terse, language-centred aesthetic and an intense ensemble: Nicolas Bouchaud, Norah Krief, Frédéric Noaille, Juliette Bialek and Valérie de Champchesnel. The staging foregrounds verbal rhythm and theatrical momentum to unsettle and provoke reflection.

In French.

FURTHER AFIELD

Celebrating JazzContreBand’s 30th anniversary, this large-scale creation gathers trumpeter Erik Truffaz with a unique Franco–Swiss ensemble drawn from the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie and the Orchestre de chambre de Genève. Side by Side revisits Truffaz’s early symphonic impulses, blending classical textures and jazz improvisation through written scores and free dialogue. The production, created with Jazz à Vienne, explores lineage, timbre and cross-generational exchange in a richly orchestrated sound world.

FURTHER AFIELD

Olivier Debelhoir makes his first in-theatre creation with La vie de ma mère, a circus-theatre piece led by Compagnie d’un Ours. As performer and director, Debelhoir and his collaborators probe language, vertigo and the mechanics of wonder, combining intimate clowning, accordion music and surreal apparitions. Staged encounters — including a knight figure and a momentary levitation forty-seven centimetres above the ground — build a tense, poetic atmosphere that oscillates between humour and uncanny lyricism.

In French.

FURTHER AFIELD

Ce qui nous traverse, choreographed by Nawal Aït Benalla and co-directed with Abou Lagraa, is a visceral dance piece by Compagnie La Baraka that probes the body in an age of technology. Dancers Elie Fico, Alba Fracchia, Marion Frappat, Alfredo Gottardi and Rachele Pinzan navigate rhythmic patterns, tensions between constraint and freedom, isolation and encounter, and the shifting boundaries of embodiment. Olivier Innocenti’s compositions and Laïs Foulc’s lighting frame a powerful, poetic investigation of collective and intimate corporeality.

FURTHER AFIELD

Choreographed and directed by Michel Kelemenis, L’amoureux de Madame Muscle is a playful, ludo‑anatomical dance piece that sketches a pop, cartoon universe. Three performers — Aurore Indaburu, Anthony La Rosa and Mylène Lamugnière — animate vaudevillian tableaus, shadow‑play and circus‑tinged physical comedy to explore flesh, muscle and the poetry of movement. Kelemenis’s staging blends curiosity, wit and precise bodily observation to create a fresh, sensorial portrait of love and the human frame.