Performance Interventions Series Editors: Elaine Aston, University of Lancaster, and Bryan Reynolds, University of California, Irvine Performance Interventions is a series of monographs and essay collections on theatre, performance, and visual culture that share an underlying commitment to the radical and political potential of the arts in our contemporary moment, or give consideration to performance and to visual culture from the past deemed crucial to a social and political present. Performance Interventions moves transversally across artistic and ideological boundaries to publish work that promotes dialogue between practitioners and academics, and interactions between performance com munities, educational institutions, and academic diSciplines. Titles include: Alan Ackerman and Martin Puchner (editors) AGAINST THEATRE Creative Destructions on the Modernist Stage Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris (editors) FEMINIST FUTURES? Theatre, Performance, Theory Maaike Bleeker VISUALITY IN THE THEATRE The Locus of Looking Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery (editors) CONTEMPORARY FRENCH THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE James Frieze NAMING THEATRE Demonstrative Diagnosis in Performance Lynette Goddard STAGING BLACK FEMINISMS Identity, Politics, Performance Alison Forsyth and Chris Megson (editors) GET REAL: DOCUMENTARY THEATRE PAST AND PRESENT Leslie Hill and Helen Paris (editors) PERFORMANCE AND PLACE D.]. Hopkins, Shelley Orr and Kim Solga PERFORMANCE AND THE CITY Amelia Howe Kritzer POLITICAL THEATRE IN POST-THATCHER BRITAIN New Writing: 1995-2005 Marcela Kostihova SHAKESPEARE IN TRANSITION Political Appropriations in the Post-Communist Czech Republic Jon McKenzie, Heike Roms and C. J. w.-L. Wee (editors) CONTESTING PERFORMANCE Emerging Sites of Research Jennifer Parker-Starbuck CYBORG THEATRE Corporeal/Technological Intersections in Multimedia Performance Ramon H. Rivera-Servera and Harvey Young PERFORMANCE IN THE BORDERLANDS Mike Sell (editor) AVANT-GARDE PERFORMANCE AND MATERIAL EXCHANGE Vectors of the Radical Melissa Sihra (editor) WOMEN IN IRISH DRAMA A Century of Authorship and Representation Brian Singleton MASCULINITIES AND THE CONTEMPORARY IRISH THEATRE Performance Interventions Series Standing Order ISBN 978-1-4039-4444-3 Paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Contemporary French Theatre and Performance Edited by Clare Finburgh (Senior Lecturer in Modern Drama) and Carl Lavery (Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance) LUnrtl • Bs411t1 • Prtullmltl R:SPUBUQ..UB FllANCAISB This book is supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as part of the Burgess programme run by the Cultural Department of the French Embassy in London. (www.frenchbooknews.com) palgrave macmillan * Introduction and editorial matter © Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery 2011 All other chapters © contributors 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-58051-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin's Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36850-1 ISBN 978-0-230-30566-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230305663 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Contemporary French theatre and performance / edited by Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery. p.cm. Includes index. Summary: "This is the first book to explore the relationship between experimental theatre and performance making in France. Reflecting the recent return to aesthetics and politics in French theory, it focuses on how a variety of theatre and performance practitioners use their art work to contest reality as it is currently configured in France" - Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-349-36850-1 1. Experimental theater-France. 2. Theater-France-History-21st century. I. Finburgh, Clare. II. Lavery, Carl, 1969- PN2635.2.C66 2011 792.0944'09051-dc22 2011001640 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Transferred to Digital Printing 2013 To Immanuel, Inez, Raphael and Saul Contents List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgements x Notes on Contributors xii Introduction 1 Clare Finburgh and Carl Lavery Part 1 Contemporary French Theatre 31 1 From Mise en Scene of Texte to Performance of 'Textual Material' 33 David Bradby 2 The Spirit of a Place: Place in Contemporary French Theatre 4S Michel Corvin 3 The Landscaped Narratives of Phillipe Minyana and Noelle Renaude S6 Celine Hersant 4 The Politics of Dramaturgy in France 68 Clare Finhurgh S An Unlikely Scene: French Theatre in the New Liberal Economy 80 Jean-Pierre Han 6 The Construction and Production of Performance 90 Robert Cantarella 7 Performing Presence, Affirming Difference: Deleuze and the Minor Theatres of Georges Lavaudant and Carmelo Bene 99 Laura Cull 8 Theatre du Grabuge: Ethics, Politics and Community 111 Berenice Hamidi-Kim 9 Amateurism and the 'DIY' Aesthetic: Grand Magasin and Phillipe Quesne 122 Chloe Dechery vii viii Contents Part 2 Contemporary French Performance 13S 10 From Orlan to Bernhardt: Recycling French Feminism, Theatre and Performance 137 Elaine Aston 11 Performance and Poetry: Crossed Destinies 149 Eric Vautrin 12 Breaking Down the Walls: Interventionist Performance Strategies in French Street Theatre 162 Susan Haedicke 13 Montage and Detournement in Contemporary French Moving Image Performance 174 Carl Lavery 14 Xavier Ie Roy: The Dissenting Choreography of One Frenchman Less 188 Bojana Cvejic 15 A Theological Turn? French Postmodern Dance and Herman Diephuis's D'Apres '.-G. 200 Nigel Stewart 16 Watching People in the Light: Jerome Bel and the Classical Theatre 213 Augusto Corrieri 17 Apres toutes ces ellesl After All this Else: 'New' French Feminisms Translated to the British Scene 224 Geraldine Harris Index 236 List of Illustrations 1 Extract from Noelle Renaude (2006), Ceux qui partent it l'aventure (Paris: Theatrales), p. 93 64 2 Bernard Heidsieck reading Tout autour de Vaduz, la poesie/ nuit, Lyon, 2006 ©Didier Grappe 151 3 Charles Pennequin and the guitarist Jean-Franc;ois Pauvros, la poesie/nuit, Lyon, 2007 ©Didier Grappe 157 4 Montage of images from Jeanne Simone's Le Goudron n'est pas meuble at Aurillac, 2008 ©Susan Haedicke 167 5 Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's TH. 2058 at Tate Modern, 2009 ©Carl Lavery 179 6 Julien Gallee-Ferre (Christ) and Claire Haenni (Mary) in Herman Diephuis's D'apres f.-c., 2006 Photo: Marco Barbon 205 ix Acknowledgements We have endeavoured, where possible, to use respected translations in this volume. When this was neither possible nor appropriate, we either asked contributors to provide their own translations, or translated texts ourselves with the support of Dominic Glynn and Cathy Piquemal. We adopted the same principle with respect to titles of plays, performances and texts. On all occasions, the date in brackets refers to the original French publication, and not to the English translation. The meaning of titles that remain in the French original are, we trust, self-evident. Finally, we have tried to engage the chapters in a dialogue with each other by making use of extensive cross-references and editors' notes. Some of the editors' notes are for the benefit of an Anglophone audi ence and provide information on key figures, terms and events in France. We gratefully acknowledge permission to edit and reprint sections from an essay by Michel Corvin, 'L'Esprit du lieu', Theatre/Public, 183 (2006), 36-44.; and sections of a document by Clare Finburgh, 'External and Internal Dramaturgies', Contemporary Theatre Review, 20:2 (2010),206-19 (http://www.informaworld.com). We would also like to thank the contributors and companies who supplied images for the vol ume. This book owes much to the translation, linguistic and organiza tional skills of Dominic Glynn at Exeter College, Oxford University and Cathy Piquemal, the Publications and Research Officer at Aberystwyth University. Their help has been immense. This volume would not have been possible without the support of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who provided a Burgess Grant for translation fees. In difficult economic times, Aberystwyth University and the Department of Theatre, Film and Television (TFTS) went beyond the call of duty and financed translation costs, supplied administrative support and funded a research trip to Paris in 2009. We are indebted to Professors Adrian Kear and Lynn Pykett. We would like to mention the colleagues and friends who com mented on extracts from the book and helped to source images. These include: Anne-Fran~oise Benhamou, Christophe Brault, Joseph Danan, Andrew Filmer, Reuben Knutson, Noelle Renaude, Mike Pearson, Bruno Tackels, David Williams and Ralph Yarrow. For a number of personal reasons, some good, some bad, this book has taken longer than it x