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Instrument Monument
Composition et direction artistique : Michel Risse
2003-2004 CREATION
Intended to develop the potentialities of all kinds of places all over the world, over a period of several years, our Instrument|Monument Programme transforms monuments and other artistic and architectural works into as many giant musical intruments and scenographic objects.
«Any form, any material is endowed with sound, however infinitesimal or inaudible. So that every day, without knowing it, we come across secret, yet unheard-of music instruments, waiting only for musicians and appropriate technical means to be revealed.»
M.Risse
A spectacular form of open-air project on sound, each Instrument|Monument performance is a totally new creation, inherent to each context, inspired specifically by the site’s own resonance, scenographic possibilities, and even memory.
The process begins with the site being — literally speaking — «auscultated» by our musicians and technicians, in search of raw material enabling both the writing of the musical score, and a poetic staging of the place’s identity: for to be heard, any form — and especially new forms — also need to be seen.
The dramatic power of each instrumental movement, the bodies, the scenography, the space, the architecture, everything contributes to turn what happens in the realm of sounds into a show. Conversely, music, here, is not a mere illustration or accompaniment, as the purpose of each picture, displacement or move is to produce sounds.
Thus, each creation owes its achievement to the discoveries gradually released by the site, and the composition of each new Instrument|Monument never ceases until it is ready for its first performance.
Here is not merely a work in progress, but the writing of a living score in progress; and the audience finally takes part in an event which has never existed before, and can never exist anywhere else.
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Team
Artistic direction:
Michel Risse
With :
Jérôme Bossard
Julien Bouchet
Damien Boutonnet
Didier Couchi
Sophie Poupin
Cécile Maillard
Sabine Montlahuc
Thibo Trilles
Fabio Turini
Gaëlle Salomon
Technical direction
Renaud Biri
Tour management
Emeric Renard
Sound management
Olivier Moyne
Sound assistant
Arnaud Jardin
Light
Jean Grison
Nicolas Tauveron
Aerial fixation manager
Fred Sintomer
Photo and vidéo
Vincent Muteau
Mentions
The work Instrument/Monument is commissioned by the French State.
Partners
Le Manège, Scène nationale de Reims
l’Atelier 231 de Sotteville-lès-Rouen
Lieux Publics, Centre national de création des arts de la rue
Le Fourneau, Scène conventionnée Arts de la rue
Espace Périphérique, Paris-Villette
Le Parapluie d’Aurillac
Supports
la DMDTS – French Ministry of culture and communication
le DICREAM
la SACEM
la SPEDIDAM
l’AFAA
Thanks to
La Cellule
Act’Art 77
Festival de l’Oh
Principauté de Monaco
Artrafic & la Mairie de Paris
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2010
- Anstimmen - Trieben main square, REGIONALE10 (Trieben, Austria)
2008
- IntonaRivoli - Rivoli Castel, Teatro a Corte (Rivoli, Italy)
- Spectropera - Cairo Opera House (Cairo, Egypt)
2007
- Château Fortissimo - Fortress of Blandy-les-Tours, Mémoire Vive festival (France)
- Opéra de Fer - Opera house of Graz and “Kafka’s Sword” statue, La Strada (Graz, Austria)
- Pont sur l’onde - Bridge of Nogent-sur-Marne, festival de l’Oh! (Nogent sur Marne, France)
- Retour aux sources - Thermal spring resort of Encausse, Les pronomades (Encausse-les thermes, France)
2006
- Bruits roses - Central place of Angers, Les Accroche-Cœurs (Angers, France)
2005
- Ondines et Sirènes - St Georges swimming pool, Les Tombées de la nuit (Rennes, France)
- Une petite musique de cour - Hôtel de Beauvais - court of law of Paris, Les rythmes du Marais (Paris, France)
2004
- Dehors/Dedans - Scène Nationale Le Manège and covered Circus of Reims (Reims, France)
- Par-dessus le Marché - Place de la Condamnine, Printemps des Arts (Monaco)
- In Cage - Park of La Roquette, Itinérance Rue (Paris, France)
- Terra Incognita - “Holland” tugboat and wharf of Terschelling, Oerol Festival (Terschelling, Netherland)
"I had the intuition of hearing the concrete vibrate, in both a "musique concrète" and a… concrete music. I was clearly envisionning the gesture of a musician-dancer-athlete, like the emblematic figure of the Rank Organisation, hitting this construction with a giant mallet in order to make it sound. This instant sound image haunted my subconscious, without me further questioning its feasibility, its place, or its development into any sort of form." Michel Risse
From a material, visible, tangible and immovable construction, we create a monument of sounds, movements, and figures; a virtual monument already contained in the object but suddenly revealed, witnessed, increased through a supplementary, a dimension still unheard of.
Almost all types of buildings, monuments, works of art, urban developments and street furniture, interiors and exteriors, can be transformed into instrument.
The Instrument|Monument project takes a great part of its content from within the very context: it is above all the sound and scenographic properties encountered in situ that determine the creation's progression.
Amongst the specific tools developed for this creation, scriptophonics curiously reincorporates the notion of “text” in this sound universe. This is indeed a question of offering “the grain”, “the touch” of a rubbed surface to be heard, as well as the infinite variations produced by accelerations, shifts, points, full and fine strokes, from a tip on this support.
One of the utopias that this project flirts with is the reunification of forms which, over the centuries, have progressively become separated and isolated while also becoming more refined : dance, costume, music, the graphic sign and figure, drama, physical exploit...
