Lettres Vives
A poetic impulse inspired by reality
Premiere on February 23, 2018, Théâtre La Ruche, Nantes
- Duration: 1 hour
- 2 performers on stage
- Sound-enhanced performance
- Performed in a black box theater
in omaggio a tutte le più belle
in homage to all the most beautiful
Italy, 1978, the Basaglia Law. Closure of all psychiatric hospitals.
In Volterra, at the San Girolamo Asylum—a veritable city within a city—thousands of letters never sent to their recipients were found among 50,000 clinical records. Intercepted, withheld, censored. Thousands of voices echoing off the walls of the asylum’s administration. Rediscovered, unearthed, brought back to life through publication.
Words, music, and the body weave the fabric of a poetic performance to commemorate, pay tribute, and breathe life back into these forgotten letters. The alchemy of an actress, a musician, and myriad voices gathered during sessions in a psychiatric hospital explores, within the intimacy of the theatrical space, what I hear today about my own confinement, my quest for freedom, and my quest for the other.
The performance was created in partnership with the psychiatry department at Nantes University Hospital: patients, caregivers, healthcare administrators, and doctors lent their voices to the letters from Volterra during recordings that were edited and integrated into the staging, functioning as invisible characters. They also responded to these letters, and all the audio responses were recorded in Italy, at the ruins of the Volterra asylum, during a trip by the company that culminated in the creation of the photographic and sound installation "Réponse(s)".
see
teaser Lettres Vives
Premiere on February 23, 2018, Théâtre La Ruche, Nantes
- Duration: 1 hour
- 2 performers on stage
- Sound-enhanced performance
- Performed in a black box theater
cast
- Based on "Lettres mortes: Censored Correspondence from the Ward of the Mad", Volterra Hospital 1900–1980, Éditions Encre et Lumière, translated and adapted by Patrick Faugeras
- Directed and performed by: Juliette Kempf
- Music: Simon Winsé
- Lighting design: Isabelle Ardouin
- Sound design: Juliette Kempf, Fabrice Leroy, Léon Septavaux
- Voices: patients and staff at Nantes University Hospital
partners
- CHU de Nantes
- CH François Tosquelles
- Mairie de Mende
- Mairie de La Possonnière
- Le Silo (réseau Actes-IF)
- Fondation Allier
© Lucile Brosseau
related works and publications
À qui s’adressent ces quelques mots peints sur une pancarte de bois, à côté de ce bouquet disparu, je ne le sais pas. En un instant je les reçois, à défaut d’avoir véritablement osé recevoir une des lettres de Volterra. En un instant, ils creusent ma direction. Sous les décombres, toujours, existent les pépites. En fouillant les lieux du gouffre, se révèle ce qui vit, bat, éclaire, s’anime – quand le vivant perce les murs.