MAGIE NOUVELLE - Circostrada Network

lifts up into the air, leaving her legs on stage (“Sur le
fil de minuit”, Luc Petton, 2002). When one speaks
figuratively of the “magic” of these shows, one
could not put it any better. There most certainly is
something magical about them.
Opening the doors
At the service of these illusions, a handful of shadow
artists are contributing to the larger presence of
magic within the cultural space. Philippe Beau
is one of them, as are Abdul Alafrez and Thierry
Collet. While they develop very different artistic
worlds, they share a similar approach to magic.
Their magic blossoms when in contact with other
arts. Abdul Alafrez is a Beaux-Arts graduate and,
early on, became very interested in music and art
in its most contemporary forms. He “quickly pulled
away from a rather dusty old way of doing magic”,
so as to explore other possibilities. The list of his
collaborations attest to his open-mindedness: from
the jazz collective ARF (Association à la recherché
d’un folklore imiaginaire) to the stage director Dan
Jemmett (for “La Grande Magie” by Edouardo De
Filippo at the Comédie Française), not to mention
his current work with Julie Brochen on Chekov’s
“The Cherry Orchard” (at the Théâtre National de
Strabourg).
We find the same atypical profile with Philippe
Beau, who has made shadow work (magic work
with shadows and hands) his specialty. After a few
fateful meetings (with, among others, Philippe
Découflé and Robert Lepage), he now focuses on
collaborations, and is driven by a desire to “bring
magic and shadow work to arts that would not have
thought to use them.” In magic, “everything is possible.
To say that to stage directors or choreographers, it
opens up doors for them....
Exchange of good practice
The key to collaboration is in exchange. The magician
puts his skills and technique at the service
of the project. In return, he finds new means of
exploration. “I work in close detail with my hands”,
Philippe Beau tells us, “Collaborating with dancers,
I can explore ideas that their bodies make possible.
They become shadow performers.”
According to whether he is present on stage or
not, the demand and the time available, Abdul
Alafrez intends to “permanently reinvent the trade.
When I arrive at a theatre, everyone has his place.
I don’t, I have to find it, create it. It’s a fulfilling
experience every time.” Each show is a chance to
invent or to test new effects, but also to advance
the art of magic itself by putting it in contact with
other artistic disciplines. These magic effects must
transcend their technical side to insert themselves
as well as they can into the dramaturgy, the ➜
© CATHERINE-ALICE PALAGRET
“39GeorgeV”, a giant
trompe-l’œil by Pierre
Delavie and Frédéric
Beaudoin, 2007.
“Le Défilé”, an exhibit by
Jean Paul Gaultier and
Régine Chopinot at the
Musée des Arts Décoratifs,
in Paris.
An active principle
New magic wants to build bridges between artistic disciplines. Outside
of the borders of the performing arts, it is already taking its place as the
active principle of ritualised moments like the haute couture fashion
shows: weightless collections, metamorphoses of models in plain view
imagined by Cie 14:20 for the exhibit “Le Défilé”, by Jean Paul Gaultier
and Régine Chopinot at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2007. It is
also present in the transformable clothing of the designer Hussein
Chalayan. Another ritual moment to approach is the meal, as much for
its proceedings as for its performance of textures and flavours. Ferran
Adrià, chef at the restaurant El Bulli, in Catalonia, speaks of magic as
one of the emotions promoted by his culinary language. His work gives
birth to flavours of carrot or electric cakes... At the crossroads of disciplines,
the chemist and visual artist Laurent Duthion offers molecular
music, sub-aquatic tastings in an aquarium and other bubbles filled
with Antarctic odours of flowers.
But the fields of application for magic are infinite. Its processes are
found within several artistic approaches. They can also be found in the
work of video artists (the optical theatre of Pierrick Sorin, slow-motion
performances by Julien Maire), painters (anamorphose on sidewalks by
Julian Beever), photographers (floating images on abandoned buildings,
by Georges Rousse), or sculptors (impossible, three-dimensional figures
by Francis Tabary)... Fleeting architecture plays with illusions, such as
giant optical illusions to create a soft apartment building in the middle
of Paris (39GeorgeV, 2007), an “act of urban surrealism”, according to
its creators Pierre Delavie and Frédéric Beaudoin. At the crossroads of
automation and design, the work in progress is already turning heads;
interactive installations (research on the musical gesture by Blue Yeti;
installations for museums or hospitals by Mine Control...), enchanted
lights by Ingo Maurer, modular furniture by Kerdema Design, and the
jacket of invisibility by Professor Susumu Tachi, promising the eventual
creation of transparent walls or virtual windows... ★ J.B.
© LUC BOEGLY
dossier from stradda #16 / page 15