April 1st

For a long time I explored, one after the other, various forms of theatre :  one man show, musical comedy, variety group shows...  These past few years opened a cycle of what I call « grands spectacles », that is shows without (a preconceived) theme or form that are a celebration and singing, imaginary opera, liquid and fluid, that refuse to play to the gallery, refuse to transpose, just show what is there. 1st of April, first performed in Brussels on April 1st 2011 is the first in that lineage that continued in Paris the following season : — je peux / — oui ( –I can/-yes) ; Chic by Accident (Accidentally Chic) andJe m’occupe de vous personnellement (I’ll personally take care of you).  April 1st, that had not been performed in Paris, will be restaged for Les Bouffes du Nord. Its principle is simple : it’s an open door to all varieties of perdition. Fragments of little groups hanging on to some land, some corner of a Roman or Berlin suburb, a lost fish, a lost frequency, all poets, all clowns, troubadours, acrobats... Travelling people, travelling theatre... the vessel Earth and the exo-planets, the ocean planets…. « Let us then prepare poems and images that do not fulfill any of our enslaved wishes », says Alain Badiou quoting Jean Genet in The Balcony : « How to get closer to Freedom, People, Virtue and how to love them if one magnifies them! If one makes them untouchable ? They must be left in their living reality.  Prepare then poems and images that will not gratify, but annoy. »

Yves-Noël Genod