It’s not a duo, it’s a trio. It tells the story of a friendship: the two young acrobats met and got attached to Fabrice Champion, the formerly successful trapeze artist of Les Arts Sauts who disappeared ever since. Mourning treated with juvenile vitality and propensity for happiness. As much circus as it is dance or film.
A famous and successful acrobat and poet, Fabrice Champion suffered an accident that paralyzed him from the waist down. This could have meant the end of his career. However, thanks to an intensive and hard physiotherapy treatment and a surprise encounter, he discovered new possibilities in his condition. He started to practice again, with two circus students, and redefined acrobatics by applying a new perspective on the disadvantages. At the time, the encounter of the three was treated on in a documentary, which was as much about Fabrice Champion’s fight as the two young acrobat’s spiritual and emotional transformation, their growing up—about friendship, life and the possibilities of extending man’s possibilities for action. Shortly after the film was completed, Fabrice went to Peru, where he died among mysterious circumstances, probably as a result of participating in a rite that involved ayahuasca.
Acrobates is an attempt at a confession. In a setting of circus and theatre, and without the use of words, the acrobat’s close friends tell what joint work meant for them, how it changed their lives and outlook on life. Acrobates is an “ode on life, friendship, tenderness, the stormy process of becoming an adult,” wrote the Liberation. It is a celebration of weightlessness and time arrested, of remembering and life. It is as much circus as it is dance and fi lm. It is not a mere memento and a salute to a special man; it is much more about those who stayed and try to come to terms with the extraordinary experience that was work with Fabrice Champion. They retrace the spatial limits of their existence, rediscover the joy of movement, learn new forms of acting responsibly.
Direction: Stéphane Ricordel
Dramaturgy and images: Olivier Meyrou
Performers: Alexandre Fournier, Matias Pilet
Music: François-Eudes Chanfrault
Sound designer: Sébastien Savine
Scenography and construction: Arteoh & Side-up concept, Stéphane Ricordel
Light and video designer, consultant: Joris Mathieu, Loïc Bontems, Nicolas Boudier
Editor: Amrita David
General technician: Simon André
Light technician: Amandine Galodé
Sound and video technician: Alycia Karsenty
Production manager: Laurence de Magalhaes (Le Monfort)
Coproduction: Théâtre de la Ville, Paris; Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne; L’Agora/ PNAC de Boulazac; Cirque-Théâtre d’Elbeuf; L’Hippodrome, Scène Nationale de Douai; Le Nouveau Relax/Chaumont
Supporters: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; DRAC Ile de France; Academie Fratellini; la Fondation BNP Paribas
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A famous and successful acrobat and poet, Fabrice Champion suffered an accident that paralyzed him from the waist down. This could have meant the end of his career. However, thanks to an intensive and hard physiotherapy treatment and a surprise encounter, he discovered new possibilities in his condition. He started to practice again, with two circus students, and redefined acrobatics by applying a new perspective on the disadvantages. At the time, the encounter of the three was treated on in a documentary, which was as much about Fabrice Champion’s fight as the two young acrobat’s spiritual and emotional transformation, their growing up—about friendship, life and the possibilities of extending man’s possibilities for action. Shortly after the film was completed, Fabrice went to Peru, where he died among mysterious circumstances, probably as a result of participating in a rite that involved ayahuasca.
Acrobates is an attempt at a confession. In a setting of circus and theatre, and without the use of words, the acrobat’s close friends tell what joint work meant for them, how it changed their lives and outlook on life. Acrobates is an “ode on life, friendship, tenderness, the stormy process of becoming an adult,” wrote the Liberation. It is a celebration of weightlessness and time arrested, of remembering and life. It is as much circus as it is dance and fi lm. It is not a mere memento and a salute to a special man; it is much more about those who stayed and try to come to terms with the extraordinary experience that was work with Fabrice Champion. They retrace the spatial limits of their existence, rediscover the joy of movement, learn new forms of acting responsibly.
Direction: Stéphane Ricordel
Dramaturgy and images: Olivier Meyrou
Performers: Alexandre Fournier, Matias Pilet
Music: François-Eudes Chanfrault
Sound designer: Sébastien Savine
Scenography and construction: Arteoh & Side-up concept, Stéphane Ricordel
Light and video designer, consultant: Joris Mathieu, Loïc Bontems, Nicolas Boudier
Editor: Amrita David
General technician: Simon André
Light technician: Amandine Galodé
Sound and video technician: Alycia Karsenty
Production manager: Laurence de Magalhaes (Le Monfort)
Coproduction: Théâtre de la Ville, Paris; Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne; L’Agora/ PNAC de Boulazac; Cirque-Théâtre d’Elbeuf; L’Hippodrome, Scène Nationale de Douai; Le Nouveau Relax/Chaumont
Supporters: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication; DRAC Ile de France; Academie Fratellini; la Fondation BNP Paribas
