Un pays supplémentaire (an additional country)
Play for young audiences and all ages, sound and visual creation
premiered in 2025
approx. 40 minutes
Claudine Simon : concept, writing, performer
Etienne Demoulin : sound engineer, rim, performer
AnneSophie Berard : scenographer
MAeva Prigent : plastic designer
Summary
Like a whimsical initiation to experimentation and creativity, this creation gives way to that special moment of wonder when the everyday shifts to the imaginary.
At the start, dismembered piano parts are laid out on the floor: keys, tangled strings, hammers in a heap, and further still, structural elements are gathered together. We stand in awe of this motionless setting… Until an enchantment brings these elements to life!
Then the keys are transformed into a soundscape of light and shadow, accents and lines. As for the strings, they become an instrument that sings without even being touched… Burlesque creatures, the hammers shake and wreak havoc on the stage while the piano structures, now light, begin to float and dance… a world full of presences, a space haunted by sounds where the strange and unusual dominate.
Like a bedroom made a mess by a child’s games, the stage is transformed into a dreamlike space. This intense, joyous mess, a tribute to creative freedom, is a kind of appeal to the power of the child’s imagination, to his poetic perception of the world.
A title, an approach…
Un pays supplémentaire (an additionnal country) is a reference to a phrase coined by film critic Serge Daney.
This expression sounds like a message to arrouse children’s curiosity.
Practising music adds a whole new world to ones life, a realm of emotions and perceptions. It’s also a way of living, seeing, listening and feeling that you can make your own. It’s a very special world that we can make our own.
It’s a bit like when you’re faced with translating a foreign language. When you go looking for formulas and expressions, you very often find an astonishing way of saying things that is specific to that language. These formulas, these unexpected combinations of words for our own mode of expression, our own language, stimulate the imagination. Foreign languages have fascinating ways of making us see and feel differently what we actually say in our own language.They can bring up up cultural, visual and oral references, uncovering new ways of thinking and seeing, a whole baggage of curious equivalents and surprising false friends – in short, another world…
This project aims to lead the children to discover something special, an unusual and more experimental kind of music. This discovery, this encounter, will be brought about by the stratagem of a model train that you can follow with your eyes. It acts on sound (what sound?) and produces cast shadows.
Along the way, the amusing and amazing events, put the children in the right receptive mood. Their field of attention and desire grows, their perception opens up, and they are offered a new way of listening, as an invitation rather than a prescription.
An installation
An unusual installation appeared : a miniature electric train on a circuit on the floor, surrounding the piano.
The intricate parts of the piano (keys, hammers, small mechanisms, springs) or and the preparations (clothes pegs, balls, brushes, etc.) are placed on either side.
The train then sets off.
An LED light fixed to the front sweeps across the space, creating a shadow effect on the walls of the room, while a shotgun microphone fixed to the top amplifies the sounds of the journey.
The objects scattered on the floor take on a completely different form and appearance. The closer they are to the spotlight, the more imposing their shadows become. Little by little, these figures take on the shape of an urban landscape, the projected black touches becoming gigantic buildings that stand out against the walls.
Our position as spectators is turned upside down. This miniature train and the phantasmagoria associated with its movement transform us into travellers on an unexpected journey. We’re transported into an astonishing, improbable universe, creating an immediate sense of interaction with the performance.
rudy decelière