L'Invitation

All cultures have their own festivals and celebratory rituals. To be a host is a high value all over the world. The collectif barbare, together with its ensemble of people from different backgrounds, invites the audience to a celebration that gathers everyone around one table and makes the theatre a place of encounter with the foreign.
The audience enters to background music and finds a welcoming space with tables and benches. The play, performed in the middle of the audience, begins with an orchestra and songs, surprises for the children and announcements at the microphones. From this beginning, a multi-layered acoustic and visual journey develops. The room transforms into a company canteen or the lounge of an airship, and suddenly everyone is part of an open-air wedding celebration in southern Afghanistan. As in a kaleidoscope, different worlds of life are revealed in the course of this magical tour, which theatrically exaggerate the reality of the participants and thus make it visible.
In most cases, an invitation means that the person invited is welcome and that their presence is desired. An aspect that takes on a completely different meaning when one realises that a good number of the participants in «L'Invitation» who sit in the middle of the audience on the festival benches are not exactly welcome in many places in Switzerland.
«L'Invitation» is a participatory music theatre and mediation project with young people of diverse origins, nationalities, gender and sexual orientation.

With

Astride Schlaefli (concept/direction/sound/video), Armelle Scholl (composition/music), David Merz (electronics/music), Christian Kuntner (project management/sound design/sound engineering), Stephan Schwendimann (stage), Florence Schlumberger (administration), Michael Eigenmann (lighting/technical direction), Vera Silberring (movement), Natania Prezant (dramaturgy), a.o.

Program

Music by Armelle Scholl and Astride Schlaefli: various untitled pieces
Vladimir Cosma (*1949): «la vie en rose» (1983) / «la Paloma» (1983)
Mahsa Vahdat (*1973): «farewell» (2020)
Himzo Polovina (1927-1986): «Emina» (1970)
Lili Boniche (1922-2008): «Alger, Alger» (1996)
Wjatscheslaw Meschtscherin (1923-1995): «Siberian Melody» (2002)

Info

For the concert on the 7.6. a reservation is required -> Alina Inserra: ainserra@garedunord.ch

Duration

75 minutes, no break

Prices

CHF 35.-/25.-/15.- (free choice at the box office or in advance)
Free admission applies to persons with residence permit N, F or S. / CHF 5.- students of the Hochschule für Musik FHNW and the Musicology Seminar of the University of Basel / CHF 10.- members Colourkey and children under 12 years.

Links

→ collectif-barbare.ch
→ astrideschlaefli.ch