22 castors front contre front

This programme consists of three short pieces for 22 performers, created in collaboration with the choreographic research group of the University of Poitiers (SUAPS).

As part of the Festival À Corps, the choreographers Gaëlle Bourges, in 2016, Mickaël Phelippeau, in 2017, and Marlène Saldana & Jonathan Drillet, in 2018, have responded to a commission from TAP - Théâtre Auditorium de Poitiers and the University of Poitiers. In this context, they each created for a group of students a choreographical piece lasting about thirty minutes .

Impressed by the performance and the strength generated by this group of young performers, who were supervised throughout the year by Isabelle Lamothe, Associate Professor of Physical Education and Sport at the Faculty of Sport Sciences in Poitiers, Gaëlle, Mickaël, Marlène and Jonathan proposed to go beyond the framework of the usual one-time performance, which takes place every year during the À Corps Festival; and thus form a new group with performers who have worked on at least one of the 3 projects, or even 2, or even all 3.

Signed by artists with strong artistic biais, but bringing together the very same group of young performers, this ballet, more than 100 years after the creation of Russian ballet, aspires to the same great renown. The portrait of this generation of twenty-somethings, as a community on stage, will take the shape of a chronological evening: the 11th century, with Front contre Front by Gaëlle Bourges, the present, with 22 by Mickaël Phelippeau, and science fiction with Castors (puisque tout est fini) by Marlène Saldana & Jonathan Drillet.


In 2016, choreographer Gaëlle Bourges creates Front contre Front. The starting point for this piece is the capital known as "La dispute", a Romanesque work of art dating from the 11th century, which can be seen at the Musée Sainte-Croix in Poitiers. Three sequences from the same story are sculpted here, which illustrate a confrontation: two men ostensibly pull their beards, eyes in eyes, forehead against forehead. As they work to set up the three scenes in the famous capital, the interpreters glide into the Middle Ages - not to exhume it, but to feel what remains of it in them, and to see if the "forehead to forehead" is still alive.

In 2017, Mickaël Phelippeau created 22, "Matthias, Paul, Pauline, Mathilde, Pierre-Adrien, Tristan, Merlène, Camille, Juliette, Helen, Kevin, Virginie, Delphine, Simon, Maxence, Phlaurian, Malwenn, Louise, Adèle, Quentin, Claire & Matthieu" was the first title of this piece. It was a way of affirming that the work was done with and from each and every one of the 22 performers. They then started from a simple principle of collective work, in the line of the "group portrait", that is to say a pictorial, even sculptural, photographic or literary work of art, here performative, representing several people, following for each one the rules of the individual portrait. 22 is also the average age of this group. As Lily Allen says in her song 22, which is however not so optimistic: "When she was 22, the future looked bright". Yes, the future...

In 2018, Marlène Saldana & Jonathan Drillet created Castors (puisque tout est fini), a fable in which these animals - whose anal glands naturally produce the active ingredient of aspirin and the taste of vanilla - go in packs, have the spirit of construction, the power to modify the environment, to transform the idea into reality and, therefore, to change the course of life. To do this, they must notably reflect on the concept of soft mass in contemporary democracies, in order to produce a kind of dada recital based on the culture pages of Valeurs Actuelles and Pierre Rabhi's vegetable garden cards.

a 3-part piece composed of

Front contre Front (creation 2016)
conception Gaëlle Bourges
artistic collaboration Agnès Butet

22 (creation 2017)
conception Mickaël Phelippeau
artistic collaboration Carole Perdereau

Castors (puisque tout est fini) (creation 2018)
conception Jonathan Drillet & Marlène Saldana

with the collaboration of Isabelle Lagrange Lamothe
performance Paul Audebert, Paul Billaud, Pauline Bleron, Rosalie Boistard, Etienne Bories, Mathilde Caillet, Pierre Adrien Chastang, Léa Fouillet, Juliette Graillot Amat, Camille Guibert, Engaline Guibert, Helen Heraud, Shana Lellouch, Eva Manin, Anne Moran, Maxence Pelloquin, phlaurian Pettier, Louise Pikety, Adèle Pineau, Salomé Rudnik, Matthieu Sinault, Quentin Thomas
light design Abigail Fowler & Fabrice Ollivier
sound design Stéphane Monteiro & Guillaume Olmeta
production set-up Isabelle Morel
production, distribution, administration Fabrik Cassiopée – Manon Crochemore, Pauline Delaplace & Marie-Laure Menger


executive production bi-p association
project built in collaboration and co-production with the TAP - Théâtre Auditorium de Poitiers, the University of Poitiers and association Os