Last Saturday I went to see James Thiérrée. I didn’t know him before but it appeared to be an interesting show. I cannot easily say in which “kind” of performance it belongs. It is something between dance, circus, pantomime and theatre with a very impressing scenography, costumes and props.
“Raoul” is a surreal story of a man looking for his identity. He is living in a house that is being deconstructed slowly during the performance to disappear in the end, when he will just fly away. The scenography is a fundamental element of the show as it interacts constantly with the body of the performer. Thiérrée’s body is like immaterial. His movements flow and its possibilities look unfinished.
The stage design, the lights, the movements of “Raoul” and the music are all creating the poetic language of Thiérrée. We are watching a series of surreal images. A house constructed by metal bars and animals made of clothes and sheetings. It is like a dream world is unfolding in front of us.
The show was a good food for thought as it put me thinking in the interrelation of cinema and theatre and their crossing paths.
Even if there are no digital media to this performance, the influence of cinema can be seen on the movements of the performer. For example: in this amazing sequence of a slow motion imaginary fight he is presenting in the end. Slow motion is something borrowed from the art of cinema. The birth of cinema gave us the chance to experience this kind of images. It is through filming that we can divide our time into "frames" and then "play" with their connections or their velocity.
I am referring to this fact, because the obvious is that the art of cinema has borrowed a lot of things from theatre but we barely speak about what theatre has borrowed from cinema.
