On Tuesday, the Compagnie Philippe Genty took possession of the National Theater’s main auditorium to begin the complex stage setup for its production of La Fin des Terres, which opened yesterday.
Logistically the show is a huge undertaking. The company has brought with it nearly 7 tonnes of equipment to recreate the magical dreamscape envisioned by the show’s creator Philippe Genty. Samia Doukali, who is the troupe’s manager and responsible for shepherding the performers and equipment around the world and standing in for the aging Genty, said that La Fin des Terres was one of Genty’s most technically ambitious productions.
“The set is extremely complicated and heavy, but the effect we create is very peaceful and light,” Doukali said. This is the widest set that Genty has ever built, and in a new departure, he has devised an elaborate framework of panels. “There are many sliding panels, so that within the big frame that is the stage, he plays around with cutting up the spaces ... He is really experimenting with the view, the image, that he wants you to have. At one point, the massive frame you have in front of you is shrunk to the size of a postage stamp. Like in the cinema when you zoom in.”
Though Genty, 71, developed his art from puppetry, Doukali emphasized that La Fin des Terres was not really a puppet show. “We use the term ‘visual’ theater. It’s not dance, it’s not puppets, it’s not drama, it’s not circus ... When Philippe started in France 40 years ago, there were not many companies doing this sort of thing. People did dance, or theater with words as a way of expressing things,” Doukali said. “Philippe was lucky or clever enough to combine what he liked in other types of thing.”
Doukali said Genty was influenced by Japan’s Bunraku puppetry, in which puppeteers stand together with puppets, visibly manipulating them. “Philippe really likes the fact that as a puppeteer, you could just disappear, even while being so much present as well,” Doukali said.
“In traditional Bunraku, [the work of the artist] is about giving life to a character,” Doukali said. “Philippe developed this into giving life to any kind of object,” she added.
Doukali also sees Genty’s wife and long-time collaborator Mary Underwood as a key player in the development of Compagnie Philippe Genty’s unique style. “They [Underwood and Genty] have been working together for the last 40 years. She was a dancer and she brought the rhythm and the timing [to the productions]. Philippe would come out with these wild ideas, and she helped him give shape and make it into an art where there was none before.”
Genty’s work inhabits the human subconscious, and this world beyond the external differences that divide people and cultures has proven to be universally appealing.
“Philippe, like any artist, you might say, is a rather disturbed person, so I believe he spent a lot of time wondering why he is different from other human beings. He used this [idea], how would you say, as a researching ground ... I think that is where he was clever, for wondering things about himself as a human being living in France, he began to realize that he was connecting with the entire world ... He wasn’t trying to explain something about the world, he was exploring the human being. And human beings are the same everywhere. His strongest point is the subject he is tackling. Some people might say that all his work is about the same thing. And, yes, it is: It is about human beings.”
Genty’s productions have never been very big on story or explanations. Only a small number of words are spoken in the whole of La Fin des Terres, with the visual language of the stage and the bodies of the performers used as the main media of communication.
“Philippe Genty ... is here to invite you on a trip somewhere. He gives you some tools and it is up to you to use those tools. It is up to you if you want to stay sitting and looking at the show or whether you want to enter into it,” Doukali said.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS