MIME

MCB-TV-276

Desirs Parade

A sublime, curious, infernal, fascinating waltz. “Désirs Parade” confronts man with his own image, in puppet form. In a strange and mysterious dance, mimes and puppets mix, mingle and metamorphose. It is a play of materials moving in space as if by magic, a play of duplication of men or their creatures, a play of disproportions between objects and puppeteers to music by René Aubry.

“Désirs Parade” was created with the use of surrealist techniques, such as automatic writing and self-dream analysis, as a source of visual production of images. The result is an enchanting visual spectacle, a fantastical story which gives free rein to the audience’s imagination. It is characterized by the use of illusion and surrealist imagery to interrupt audience expectations, raw materials, objects and performers at different scales, masks with bodies made from fabric, inflated, billowy landscapes, mirroring and multiplication of images, and, most significantly, the co-presence of live human performers with puppets, objects, and raw materials.

Originally, the show is structured in three independent scenes, punctuated by three interludes. The interludes form a single story line, performed in three sections, which could be read as the through line. By sectioning the interlude story into three parts, Genty intentionally disrupts the scene’s linear narrative.

This recording consists of 3 excerpts:

Taumel / Vertigo
Der Schläfer / the Sleeper
Die Strauße / the Ostriches

/ VERTIGO /

In “Vertigo” the central image is a mask with a fabric body. The scene begins with an illusion of headless men and the revelation of material as a handkerchief and ‘bottomless’ chest that the live performer disappears into and the puppet then appears out of in a blast of smoke. At first, ‘baby rose’ is a full-bodied male puppet that performs an air-swimming dance. Eventually, the puppet becomes entangled with the handkerchief material and discovers its manipulators, who rip its body apart but eventually become part of its newly formed fabric body, which evolves from a singleone-headed character into two three-headed characters.

/ THE SLEEPER /

In the sketch “The Sleeper” (Le Dormeur), created in the early 1980s, the black fabric forming the body plays a more important role in the construction of the character than the head of the puppet. hangers. Here, the fabric has the role of expressing the power of this unknown being that has emerged from the unconscious of the sleeper during a dream. After having grown to its peak, it overhangs the protagonist, barely swaying as he contemplates him in a sinister reverie.

/ THE OSTRICHES /

“The Ostriches” is sketch created in 1969 to “Danse des heures” from the opera La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli. The puppets in the form of plush ostriches wearing orange tutus were guided by the manipulators hidden at the back of the stage. One of the ostrich ‘dancers’ constantly diverts the attention of the others by losing her underwear. Her legs would get stuck, then she laid a square egg and her legs detached from her body, taking on a life of their own. These comic scenes were designed to generate a range of emotions: curiosity, shame, feelings of superiority, indiscretion, embarrassment, animosity. The sketch conveys a simple idea, expressed in an amusing and ironic way, a metaphor for the awkward and embarrassing situations in which everyone is likely to find themselves.

Date of the recording is believed to be 18th of August 1987.

/ SOURCES /