In the summer of 2020, I came back to the inspirational atmosphere of southern France. I was lucky enough to connect with the Théâtre de la Massue, a contemporary puppet theatre established by the director and scenographer Ezequiel Garcia Romeu. 

      The workshop " 0 as origin " was a meeting of French and international artists based in Nice. A group composed of artists working in the different fields - puppetry scenographers, performers, dancer, video artist and musician- was sharing an interest in puppets and confrontation of artistic languages. 

      Work was developed around the marionette constructed by E. Romeu, which was specific by the mechanism of manipulation. The puppet was a human figure, combining realism in its detailed face features and geometrical stylization of the body. It was hung on the large wooden frame. Two manipulators were holding the structure in one hand and the manipulating strings in the other one. Strings were leading from the puppet's head, arms and feet along the wooden frame. This technology allowed a long distance between manipulator and puppet, which empowered the illusion of the puppet´s own life.

     The principal aim was, to experiment with how the puppet can walk through various stenographic surroundings, philosophically evolving around the metaphor of following one´s life path. Scenography was created using randomly found objects, always creating  contrasting spaces- sculpture made from wooden blocks, plastic sheets or old flowerpot. All the objects were enhancing the poetics of the rough, the random, the rusty.... getting far from a quest for beauty. 

     During the workshop, I tried to confront my puppets made during my residency with evolving pictures. Finally, I ended up performing a little sequence with one of them and found that their rusty poetics went very well with the final piece shown. 

    The result of the workshop was, despite being fulfilled only a very few times -provided a few images, short sequences evoking the puppet´s walk, referring to  the path of human life, in all its subtility, contrast and never-ending search for the fragile balance. 

 

Performance process shared with Ezéquiel Garcia-Romeu, direction, scenography, contemporary puppets - Abdel Ghani Tebba, singing, oud, percussion - Katia Vonna, video performance, object theater - Marc Chevalier, contemporary art - Simon Rann, object theater - Inbal Yomtovian, performance, contemporary puppet[s] - Jo Bulitt, singing, performance, object theater - Célia Hue, contemporary art, scenography, object theater - Juliana Dubovska, scenography, object theater