Mediation
Alongside audiences
Mediation involves everything which contributes to nurturing the connections with the audiences, outside of performance time. Before or after, mediation is the place to develop an encounter, an exchange, a sharing of emotions, reflections, judgements, raising awareness, enthusiasm or even ranting and raving…
It can take place in different ways, in different contexts.
Beginning with the encounter off-stage, through to the workshop or training course, the reading of the educational pack.
The off-stage meet-and-greet takes place in the theatre, generally after the performance. Everybody is still there, and an informal conversation of around half-an-hour extends the performance time. Up for discussion are the process of creation, artistic choices, various technical aspects, but also the intentions, dramaturgy, philosophical, ethical and political questions.
There may also be raised questions concerning the realities and the professions of the sector, career pathways, the constraints of creation, the trial-and-error of the process, little anecdotes to personalise the encounter…
The encounter can also be extended at another time and elsewhere. In the classroom, for example. Or in the bar 😊
The workshop is a hands-on moment, one of passing on knowledge.
With a selection of chosen objects, and contained within a suitcase, to which are added those which the participants have brought with them, we clear the ground for the codes and the basics of object theatre.
A little house, a tree, a boat, a cow, a nativity figure… they are so many sets, characters, supports for stories in the making…
It is an immersion consisting of trial-and-error, an attempt to construct a story, poetry, language via the object.
In it the performance of the actor/actress is worked on, the specific constraints, the possible gateways into this theatricality.
Here is also honed the eye of the person who watches, in a permanent to-and-fro between doing and seeing done. We summon the imaginations, conjure up, suggest.
The object is a prism, even a pretext. To narrate yourself, for example.
Depending on demand, the workshop could spread over several sessions, become a training programme and be developed towards more specific lines of exploration and themes: adaptation of a literary work, themes connected to the show(s), self-portrait, autofiction…
In this way, the company has had the opportunity to work in schools, the community association sector, but also in closed environments (prisons for minors or adults).
The training programme enables the practical experience to be developed further, in researching the codes in-depth.
It can also be imagined in collaboration with other disciplines: puppet show, dance, magic, cinema, video, cuisine, knife throwing…
The educational pack is a tool devised by the company, specifically for teachers, pupils or anyone curious to find within it preparation for coming to the theatre. It can also aid the post-performance meet-and-greet. It provides keys to understanding each show and avenues for reflection.
Alongside professionals
Leaving behind the domain of mediation strictly speaking, the workshops and training programmes move on from introduction to in-depth study when they are geared towards professionals or students of the arts.
They are developed in league with potential co-contributing partners and in consultation with the organising bodies.
It is beneficial for people beginning their acting training to get a feel for this discipline, which markedly positions the actor/actress in the background...
The company may also be called upon by other organisations for stage directing, or to collaborate in stage direction: a one-off and technical contribution, an external perspective, an opinion.
Thus, with the Equinoxe choir, the work of stage directing the children on the Stabat Mater was carried out in close association with the music, and in an open or even ecumenical approach to the text put to music by Pergolèse, in harmony with the Stabat Mater Furiosa by the poet Jean-Pierre Siméon.
The children of the Equinoxe choir sang Pergolèse’s Stabat Matter with the Ausonia ensemble. The choir was conducted by Zeno Popescu. Karyatides played its role in the co-stage direction. With its origins in the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Equinoxe offers audiences from vulnerable groups quality music education.
