The multidisciplinary course Until we die, created by Brigitte Poupart in 2022, will be presented at the famous Les nuits de Fourvière festival, in Lyon, starting next week, from June 25 to July 2, La Presse has learned.
The immersive show that we were able to see in Montreal in 2022 at the Arsenal contemporary art, then last year in Quebec, and again at the Arsenal last March, will take place on the site of the legendary Théâtre antique de the hill of Fourvière, during the festival created in 1946 in Lyon.
An open-air theater – which presents theatre, circus, dance, music and opera shows – having hosted most of our circus companies in recent years (Les 7 doigts, Éloize, Alfonse, Machine de circus, etc.), but also Le patin libre or Les Charbonniers de l’enfer.
In the summer 2024 program, Until we die is presented alongside shows by Louise Attaque, Zaho de Sagazan, Philip Glass, Angélique Kidjo, Grand Corps Malade, Alain Souchon and Cat Power, among others.
Contacted on Tuesday afternoon, Brigitte Poupart was excited about the idea of playing in Lyon at a festival of this importance. Even more so, she tells us, since it was the festival management who asked to program the show. “They saw the first edition in 2022, and they showed a lot of interest,” she says.
Until We Die will be presented inside a film studio located on the festival site. An ideal location for the immersive journey, which mixes dance, circus and electronic music, while encouraging spectators to move around. A short film inspired by the show will be presented in another adjacent room.
The ambulatory spectacle begins with a catastrophe – never named. A huge explosion that destroys everything. We don’t know if it was a war or a cataclysm, but the destruction was total. Then, little by little, a form of life resumes, in small skits that mix dance and circus. Electro music coats everything.
Strongly inspired by the show Sleep No More, a loose adaptation of Macbeth presented in a five-story building in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, Until We Die uses the same dramatic mechanisms that make the experience of each viewer is slightly different, depending on what they chose to watch.
But unlike the New York route, the numbers in Brigitte Poupart’s show are not repeated over and over. The game also takes place in a single room.
The 12 performers of Until We Die, led by actor and dancer Jeff Hall, who plays the main character of the piece, are spread across the large playing space, performing alone, in pairs or in threes their partition. The action takes place sometimes in a kitchen, sometimes in a car, in short, it happens here and there, almost everywhere around us.
Brigitte Poupart is delighted to see her show travel. A show that has evolved a lot over the past two years, with the performers today not hesitating to mingle with the crowd. “From the beginning, it was designed to be a touring show,” she tells us. Did she feel a certain resistance to this somewhat atypical show offering?
“On the contrary,” replies the director.
After Lyon, Until We Die will continue to travel. In 2025, the course should be presented in Berlin – co-produced by the Chamäleon theater, which is looking for a place to present it – but also in Paris, London, Prague, Budapest, as well as in Spain. Despite the difficult economic context in Europe, notes Brigitte Poupart.
The designer won’t have much time to catch her breath. On August 5, she will begin filming her first feature film, Where the Souls Go, which will star Sara Montpetit, Julianne Côté, Monia Chokri and Micheline Lanctôt, among others.
The film tells the story of a 20-year-old young woman (Sara Montpetit) who requests medical assistance in dying. Before leaving, she wants to see her two half-sisters (Julianne Côté and Monia Chokri), with whom she cut ties five years ago, following the imprisonment of their father, convicted of rape and sexual assault.
“I wanted to tell the story of how a tragedy like this is experienced within a family,” she tells us. The father never touched his daughters, but the three girls still have a different point of view. The eldest is angry with her father, she does not forgive him; the one in the middle thinks that he is paying for what he did, and that there is no point in talking about it; while the youngest believes that her father is innocent and that they wanted to make an example of him. »
