Joëlle Fontannaz

L’Événement

Joëlle Fontannaz, Mathias Glayre, Nina Langensand

The title implies a story and a narrator telling it. In L’Événement (The Event), which tells the story of the burning of a bread oven in a community, speech is not just at the core of the performance, speech IS the performance. In this polyphonic piece for three performers, Joëlle Fontannaz explores the question of the collective through the ancient Greek form of the chorus, revisited in a surprising, funny and subtly orchestrated narrative. Fontannaz questions the nature of the collective and its political dimension through theater, where the text, largely improvised according to a very precise framework, is performed anew with each iteration. Through prosody, space, lighting and costumes, she takes us from an ordinary, very contemporary situation to a mythological dimension that questions our humanity – from the trio of scouts to the myth of the cave and back again, always on the edge. On stage, Fontannaz performs alongside Mathias Glayre and Nina Langensand. Borrowing her extralucid gaze from the Greek soothsayer Tiresias, the artist invites us to open our eyes to a world on fire.

In the frame of the SCH (Sélection suisse en Avignon)

In a small way, the show is about a world that is being consumed, our own world. It proposes a humble and playful way of dealing with it by telling a story together. Bertrand Tappolet

Joëlle Fontannaz - Stage director

Joëlle Fontannaz trained in ESAD in Geneva, then learned Lecoq pedagogy in LASSAAD in Brussels. Now based in Lausanne, she has worked (and is still working) as a performer and actor-creator for various companies and artists such as Adina Secretan, Guillaume Béguin, Joël Maillard, Sébastien Grosset, Émilie Rousset, Denis Maillefer, Philippe Saire… With Fair Compagnie, which she created in 2016, Fontannaz has been honing in her craft as a stage director through a research process revolving around the “savior complex”, alternative communities and the creation of new modes of narration. In her latest pieces, she uses unspectacular documentary material to transpose it into a quirky theatre piece which is minimal and has a plasticity which generates play and stagecraft.

Distribution

Concept and staging Joëlle Fontannaz
Writing and performance Joëlle Fontannaz, Mathias Glayre, Nina Langensand
Writing collaboration Adina Secretan
Dramaturgy Sébastien Grosset, Adina Secretan
Light design Vicky Althaus
Costumes and make up Vincent Deblue
Sceenography Sarah André et Vincent Deblue
Costume helper Baptiste Sorin
Set construction helper Florian Gibat
Sound design Marcin de Morsier
Lead tech Redwan Reys
Administration Michael Scheuplein
Diffusion Clémence Faravel

Production

Production Fair Compagnie
Coproduction Théâtre 2.21 Lausanne
With the support of Ville de Lausanne, Loterie romande, Canton de Vaud, Fondation Nestlé pour lʼArt, Fondation Leenaards, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Fondation Jan Michalski, FEEIG
Thank you to all the people connected, from near or far, to the Larna Collective who gave their testimonies