FEDORA - Ils n’ont rien vu

Presentation

This project is a window open on our world, where the meeting place of cultures and thoughts is drowned out under the dizzy waves of interest and of senseless struggle.
Inspired by 'Hiroshima mon amour,’ and on its tragic history that is alas so well-known, this project places memory and remembrance at the core of the work through a rhythm of blotting out and transformation.
Historical memory of what we'd want to be unimaginable, memory of a film, of its sounds, its images... and borrowed memories, things seen elsewhere, somewhere; remembering images we imagined after hearing of something; remembrance of happenings we never saw, imagined memories... that may be brutally swept away, or slowly fade out.
After several decades and the effects of globalization, with the taste for travel and conquest being stronger than the importance of sharing – what remembrance, what memories of a catastrophe like Hiroshima can be possible for today's young people, who are bombarded with chaotic images and who may even be actors of them?
What memories, too, of a powerful film that speaks of love, war and people meeting each other with breath taking simplicity and without much in the way of spectacular effects?
I choose to travel away from the screenplay and dialogues, although they are wholly up-to-date.
‘It will happen again... ten thousand suns... a whole town will be lifted up in earth... we mustn't overlook the importance of memory...’
I want our bodies to be instilled with this tension, these expectations, these obsessions, these rhythms – carried in the film by words, sounds and meaning.
Just as in the film, atomic reality is in the background, not very visible but nonetheless constant, the film will be present in the dance piece like a memory that's fading away, that's being transformed, leaving room for a reality that's still present today.
Lastly, I’d like to cite this sentence of the film’s heroine: ‘You see, watching well… I think it’s something that you learn’.
T. Lebrun

Artistic Team

For this new production travelling from Japan to France and across the world, Thomas Lebrun gathers 9 dancers from 24 to 47 years old, coming from different backgrounds and cultures but sharing the same commitment to dance and movement. He also asked lighting designer Françoise Michel to join him for this creation, willing to initiate their first collaboration together for a staging production. Finally, he met and invited Japanese visual artist Rieko Koga to create part of the set, with a large blue fabric ""boro"", pursuing the Japanese tradition.