KINGS

Conception, stage design and direction Michel Schweizer

KINGS is about joining cultural products (spectacular forms / shows) and speculative samples (a hip-hop dancer, a contemporary dancer…) that might be appreciated for what they do and / or who they are. We then can compare KINGS to OSHPB meaning Organized Spectacular Human Practices and Behaviors. An orchestrated succession of PAN, Service performed by people familiar of the stage or not ends in the making of a “show” that marks here the end of its integrity in all its meanings.

Made in the manner in-between art and economics, the partition also becomes a potential source of possible speculation. Each performance might then qualify for its own existence, free from the tight contract to which it is linked for now.

Thus: can I still be aware of my citizenship through business experience, that puts my own identity at stake, as well as my relation to the other and to the world? Because politics are at work before the position of any object and because the creation process required by KINGS implies a restoration by offering to the audience and to other people to take a catalogue.

Michel Schweizer widens the idea of performance and invites the user to directly take part in it. As an appendix to the object, the user can then be inscribed in it and with it define the limits and what is at stake as a consumer on the one hand and as a citizen on the other hand. Therefore, the performance is not only the mere exhibition of what is shown but it also allows a place for the user, a space for dialogue.

Sèverine Garat

With Hamid Benmahi, Soraya Bénac, Lee Black, Renaud Cojo, Loreto Martinez Troncoso, Patrice Pascouau, Olivier Robert

assistant – Gianni Grégory Fornet
photographic material – Patrick Veyssière
electroacoustic device – Johann Loiseau
ready-to-wear – Odile Béranger
Sound design Nicolas Barillot
Light design Véronique Bridier
Graphic design Franck Tallon

Production : La Coma
Coproducers : Le Théâtre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine / Le Théâtre National de Toulouse / La scène nationale de Bayonne et du Sud Aquitain / OARA Office Artistique de la Région Aquitaine

Photo by Frédéric Desmesure