La Veillée in situ

The Vigil is a site-specific performance that can extend and deepen the experience of the show L’Enveillée.

This form is invented and refined in collaboration with each partner; it is tailor-made for each specific venue. It is neither scripted in advance nor fixed. It may last an entire night, an evening, or until dawn. But it cannot take place in broad daylight.

It continues the meditation offered by the show—centered on singing for the deceased, singing for the passage into the afterlife, and exploring a liminal presence, an in-between space, an interstice—much like the timeless moment of a wake.

An all-night vigil gives the audience ample time to savor the artistic elements presented by the performers and to immerse themselves in the intimate and philosophical reveries they evoke. It allows them to experience these in states of consciousness and perception bordering on sleep or surrender, or while wandering, moving slowly, or choosing to distance themselves or draw closer. These are modes of engagement that a performance in its classical form does not permit. During an evening-long vigil, audience members may also become participants in the artistic act themselves...

All of this takes shape uniquely each time.

JOURNAL OF THE VIGILS

Geneva Museum of Ethnography, June 2026

At the Geneva Museum of Ethnography, where the L’Enveillée team had been hosted for a research residency in December 2023, a vigil took place in the heart of the permanent exhibition on Saturday, June 27, 2026. Songs of vigils, lamentations, and funerals from every continent echoed among the exhibition’s display cases, creating an interplay between these visual and auditory testimonies to the remarkable richness of cultures. The artists wove a vocal dialogue with these artifacts—ranging from song to poetry—drawn from their own personal journeys and their reflections on death and the rituals surrounding it. This unique performance offered a fresh perspective on the museum’s permanent collection and brought it into resonance with the vast holdings of the International Archives of Folk Music in the Department of Ethnomusicology.

Solstice Vigil at the Maison du Chant in Marseille, December 20, 2025
“Singing for the Long Night”

While creating the show and in residence at the Maison du Chant in Marseille, the L’Enveillée team offered, on this winter solstice evening at the threshold of the long night, to share their sung meditation on the passage of life. In the form of a contemplative Cantera, dedicated to our departed loved ones and those who have flown away, a landscape of song and poetry took shape, reflecting the fragility of the moment. The evening continued with a collective Cantera, where everyone present was able to share songs, particularly those from the oral tradition.