The Festival d’Automne was conceived in 1972 to showcase contemporary, multidisciplinary creation in Paris. Focused on creation, the Festival primarily promotes new works and commissions artists. Since its inception, the Festival has endeavoured to present a wide range of artists, mixing those rarely (if ever) programmed in France, such as German director Susanne Kennedy or American dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell for this edition, with long-standing partners like composer Pierre-Yves Macé.
The programme is so rich that it can be hard to find one’s way around: for over 4 months, there’s always a Festival d’Automne show, reading, or exhibition happening somewhere. Spread over more than 70 venues in and around Paris, the festival brings art into unusual places (like Alessandro Sciarroni’s opening event in a neighbourhood swimming pool).
With so many things to see – but not as much time as I’d like – I had to make a choice! For this first article (of two), I selected four shows: 100% female creators and performers in fairly light formats and set design.
Gisèle Vienne, L’Etang
I was eager to discover the now iconic L’Etang (‘the Pond’), originally written by Swiss writer Robert Walser in 1902. Adapting this ‘monologue in ten voices’ for only two performers is quite a challenge – risen to by the talents of actress Adèle Haenel, Bausch veteran Julie Shanahan, and stage director Gisèle Vienne.
The show opens with an unsettling image: five life-sized puppet teenagers slumped on a bed, techno music blaring. A technician removes them from the stage one by one, while Haenel and Shanahan enter in slow motion, as if underwater.
Haenel is mostly Fritz, a teenager who doubts his mother’s love so much that he will fake a suicide in the pond to try her. But Haenel is also his two siblings, Karla and Paul, and their friends, in turns, and all at once. Her acting is breathtaking. She transforms her voice for each character, yet her corporeal quality remains the same, blending several identities in a single body. Shanahan is the mother, but also the father, representing the structure of domination in a family, where protective social norms don’t always apply.
Everything is done to maintain discomfort and tension. Voices are amplified, they fill the room and collide with the walls of the enclosed stage. Slow-motion bodies exude a disquieting sensuality and keep the audience on its toes. Haenel and Shanahan’s bodies radiate softness, while their voices speak of suffocation and inner screams. L’Etang is a troubling piece that explores adolescence and its struggles with norms, providing much food for thought.
