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Cities

All audiences from 15 years-old

> Spectacle disponible en français

On stage: a lone actor, a table, a camera… and dozens of objects he will use to build, design and conjure up imaginary cities. Sometimes, he tells the agonizing tale of a city; every so often, he describes the residents of another city. In one case, he focuses on architecture and urban planning; in another, on the demographic boom. His camera, his very own crystal ball, draws the audience into the beating heart of a modern city and its obsessions. With each city, the narrator presents a different view of the world, musings on time, and questions human relations. Each city is in some way a metaphor, a symbol, an effigy.

With their signature low-tech approach, Olivier Ducas and scenographer Julie Vallée-Léger explore the symbolic and poetic value of objects as they create an unusual collection of imaginary cities. There are no typical scenarios, conventional machinations or characters in the throes of psychological transformation here. Villes is a list, a collection. The work’s meaning can be found in its twofold approach to storytelling:
– first, as a series of portraits of each city as told through the objects, the camera lens and the traveller’s tales;
– second, as a medley of interrelated portraits that are linked either based on their theme, their form (mirrors, sand, photographs, etc.) or their writing style (description, enumeration, personal testimony, etc.).

With this production, Olivier Ducas continues his reflection on the tension between reality and imagination, and on the overpowering influence of projected images, a reflection he began in 2008 with Roland, la vérité du vainqueur.

Written, directed and performed by Olivier Ducas
Scenography and scenic/visual writing: Julie Vallée-Léger
Artistic collaboration: Manon Claveau
Sound design: Nicolas Letarte
Lighting design: Thomas Godefroid
Technical direction: Camille Robillard
Technical direction, production: Clémence Doray
Artistic collaboration: Étienne Blanchette and Daniel Desparois
Contribution to the scenography: Catherine Renaud D.
English translation: Bobby Theodore

– “Cochon plastique” for best set design joint winner with Petit bonhomme en papier carbone (Gala des Cochons d’or de Carte Prem1ères 2014)

« Sublime and brilliant. »Jean Siag, La Presse

« Faced with buildings that appear before our eyes, walls that arise and objects that transform themsleves, there’s nothing more we can do but to marvel. »Christian Saint-Pierre, Le Devoir

« A first-class tour of imaginary cities where reverie, laughter, contemplation and exhilaration come together with Oliver Ducas’ and Julie Vallée-Léger’s creative folly. » – Isabelle Brisebois, Le Droit

« A magnificent creation… and we are the “flâneur ” of his little collection of cities, Baudrillard is in the wings, so is Baudelaire, watching, wondering, taking it easy, enjoying the surfaces, the graffiti, the sounds , the new urban space devoid of living creatures… DON’T miss this. »- Alvina Ruprecht, Capital Critics’Circle

2018
Maison de la culture Plateau-Mont-Royal (Montreal, Quebec)
Maison culturelle et communautaire de Montréal-Nord (Montreal, Quebec)
Centre culturel de Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (Montreal, Quebec)
Maison de la culture de Pointe-aux-Trembles (Pointe-aux-Trembles, Quebec)
Théâtre Cercle Molière (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

2017
Manipulate Festival (UK)

2016
Tour in Quebec (Montréal, Rouyn-Noranda, Gaspé, Baie-Comeau)
English premiere at the Theatre Junction (Calgary, Canada)
TREFF Festival (Tallinn, Estonia)

2015
Festival du Mois Multi (Quebec City, Quebec)
Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières (France)
Festival Les Francophonies en Limousin (France)
Festival Art’Pantin (France)

2014
Premiere at the Théâtre Aux Écuries (Montreal, Quebec)
Festival international de théâtre de l’Assomption (L’Assomption, Quebec)
La Nouvelle Scène (Ottawa, Canada)

Illustration Julie Vallée-Léger / graphisme Laurent Pinabel

Documents

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