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Opera - Production by the Academy

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Sex'Y

Marie-Eve Signeyrole

Amphithéâtre Olivier Messiaen

from 24 to 25 January 2018

1h30 no interval

Déconseillé aux moins de 16 ans

Sex'Y

Amphithéâtre Olivier Messiaen - from 24 to 25 January 2018

Synopsis

The Y generation take their name from the shape formed by their headphone cables on their torsos. What can it tell us about sexuality? Between 1860 and 1960, sexual revolutions aimed to liberate pleasure. Today, it falls to the Y generation to find its way in a world whose contours are still blurred, where opportunities for meeting people have multiplied, dance halls have been replaced by on-line chatting, gender identities are increasingly porous and people readily commit to a relationship whilst still seeking individual fulfilment. It is in this bewildering world, without a handbook, that this generation must learn to build their lives.

After a year of workshops, non-professional performers aged between 20 and 30 are ready to embark on a shared experience on stage: to confront and accept the gaze and proximity of others; to leave connected worlds behind temporarily in order to reconnect with their own bodies and the bodies of others. Within their sombre and nostalgic electronic universe, the Canadian group Dear Criminals have integrated arias from the Baroque repertoire, fruits of an era whose links with our own seem obvious because of the importance it accords to imagination and its way of conducting a romance at a distance, of questioning genres…

Duration : 1h30 no interval

Artists

Musical theatre

Creative team

Avec des étudiants de PMC Orthophonie, UPMC Psychomotricité, Université Paris 8 Arts du spectacle, ESPACE Paris Jeune 19e

Media

  • The Naked Heart / Our Hearts Stripped Bare

    The Naked Heart / Our Hearts Stripped Bare

    Read the article

© J’Adore Ce Que Vous Faites / OnP

The Naked Heart / Our Hearts Stripped Bare

Read the article

Interview with Marie-Eve Signeyrole

05 min

The Naked Heart / Our Hearts Stripped Bare

By Simon Hatab

On the bill at the Bastille Amphitheatre on January 24th and 25th, SeX’Y brings together several dozen participants, with electro music from the group Dear Criminals performing live for the occasion. Encounter with the director, Marie-Eve Signeyrole.

How was the SeX’Y project born?

Marie-Eve Signeyrole: We wanted to create a collaborative project with the Paris Opera Academy and a large number of non-professional performers – several dozen of them – born between 1978 and 2000, a generational music theatre production which would explore the sexuality – the sexualities – of the Y generation.

Why the Y generation?

The Y generation – the definition of which varies according to the observer, but which globally concerns the 25-35 age group – owes its name to the shape outlined on the torso by earbud cables connected to smart phones. This generation has grown up in a world where the sexual order has been shaken up – notably by the liberation movements of the seventies, to cite only the most recent: a world increasingly connected in which the opportunities to meet others have increased tenfold, the frontiers between different sexual identities are becoming more and more porous and in which fidelity is no longer an obligation and yet betrayal is not acceptable, and people commit themselves to relationships whilst seeking fulfillment as individuals… The Y generation is at the heart of this social revolution and must learn to construct its identity without guidance in a sometimes confusing universe where the contours are blurred. We asked ourselves what this generation could tell us about their relationships with love and sexuality.

SeX’Y en répétition, Amphithéâtre Bastille, 2018
SeX’Y en répétition, Amphithéâtre Bastille, 2018 © J’Adore Ce Que Vous Faites / OnP

How is the production constructed?

We held workshops on performance practice – theatre, singing, movement – over a twelve-month period. We quickly realized that it was this experience that made the project interesting: the pleasure of being together, exploring, confronting, testing, taming, breathing, watching and discovering each other. It was a matter of confronting the scrutiny and the proximity of others whilst accepting and taking on board the emotions such a confrontation generates: leaving the connected world behind for a while to reconnect with one’s own body and the bodies of others.
The subject was gigantic and we needed to find an appropriate angle from which to tackle it. We imagined that the action would take place one evening on earth, during which we ask the performers to take part in a common experiment, to give a performance in an anthropological, generational laboratory of love before the eyes of an audience also committed to the experiment and who would be asked to take part in the process. Besides their stories which we mixed up with our own, there were also the project’s “spin-offs”: after the workshops, many of the participants didn’t want to just go their separate ways. They established their own rituals (going and eating falafel, karaoke evenings…) Some of them became friends, others fell in love, yet others split up. Of course, this is something they created themselves and which escaped us completely – it was all their own. But ultimately, the project was still nurtured by all those collateral stories. In the show, we exploit this frontier between fact and fiction, between fantasy and reality.

The production is accompanied by the Canadian group Dear Criminals who composed more than fifteen songs for the occasion…

When I work on a music theatre production, I try always to find the live music that is most equal to the task of expressing the production’s objectives. Dear Criminals were the obvious choice, because of the nostalgia that emanates from their compositions: melodies haunted by death; their somber, fragile universe, in which love is often painful and disturbing. There are two musicians – Charles and Frannie – who produce their texts by each writing individually before coordinating them to resonate together. It’s not so much a duet as a meeting of two solitary individuals, orchestrated by the intelligence and sensitivity of a third musician – Vincent. This three-some has generated an organic and physical sound. For the production, we asked them to base their work on Baroque music. The Baroque repertoire interested us because it is the fruit of a period in which feelings were often betrayed, love was expressed indirectly and art served as a refuge for illicit love, as a way of skilfully subverting the moral order.

  • SeX'Y - Trailer

Access and services

Amphithéâtre Olivier Messiaen

Place de la Bastille

75012 Paris

Public transport

Underground Bastille (lignes 1, 5 et 8), Gare de Lyon (RER)

Bus 29, 69, 76, 86, 87, 91, N01, N02, N11, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Opéra Bastille 34, rue de Lyon 75012 Paris

Book your parking spot

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €35 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €70 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Opéra Bastille
  • Open 1h before performances and until performances end
  • Get in from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 40 01 17 82

Amphithéâtre Olivier Messiaen

Place de la Bastille

75012 Paris

Public transport

Underground Bastille (lignes 1, 5 et 8), Gare de Lyon (RER)

Bus 29, 69, 76, 86, 87, 91, N01, N02, N11, N16

Calculate my route
Car park

Q-Park Opéra Bastille 34, rue de Lyon 75012 Paris

Book your parking spot

In both our venues, discounted tickets are sold at the box offices from 30 minutes before the show:

  • €35 tickets for under-28s, unemployed people (with documentary proof less than 3 months old) and senior citizens over 65 with non-taxable income (proof of tax exemption for the current year required)
  • €70 tickets for senior citizens over 65

Get samples of the operas and ballets at the Paris Opera gift shops: programmes, books, recordings, and also stationery, jewellery, shirts, homeware and honey from Paris Opera.

Opéra Bastille
  • Open 1h before performances and until performances end
  • Get in from within the theatre’s public areas
  • For more information: +33 1 40 01 17 82

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