The Sweet Torment

Artistic genre: Dance, acrobatics
Year the show was created: 2022

Pierre Jean Bréaud and Guillaume Sendron are acrobats. Over the course of their careers, they have pushed the boundaries of technical prowess. While the thrill of vertigo remains undiminished and their physical commitment total, their exploration now focuses on more subtle aspects of their craft. The concepts of weight, connection, and imbalance open up equally exciting new frontiers to explore. As they like to say: “What meaning is there in our path as hand-to-hand acrobats, if not that of touch—of touching and being touched?”
In a dual-front stage setup, where we’ll be as close as possible to the artists, this is a sensitive, dizzying encounter, rooted in the delicacy of shared connection, where the very notion of “carrying” is seen as a foundational act of our humanity.

This version sheds all artifice to adapt to specific environments or landscapes, into which we wish to immerse ourselves with as little disruption as possible. While our principles regarding movement, gravity, improvisation, and intimacy remain, the words here do not resonate in the same way, as we play much more with the themes of touch and being touched.
As a counterpoint to the indoor version, where we deploy the full range of sound, technique, equipment, and seating to immerse the audience in a setting, in this version we take advantage of and seek to magnify the setting provided to us, to expose the raw material of the performance within it.
While this version is performed in natural light, it is accompanied by sound design that remains as discreet as possible.
No tiered seating; the performers move through the audience, who in turn create a path, a landscape, a vanishing point... Each person enjoys shifting perspectives as the performance unfolds.

This highly flexible format, which leaves plenty of room for improvisation, allows us to envision anything within the space, making it feel like a unique adventure.

Goals of the residency: We will work on adapting the content of the show we created for the theater to a non-traditional space.

Starring: Pierre Jean Bréaud and Guillaume Sendron / Outside perspectives: Airelle Caen and Colline Caen / Lighting design: Mathias Flank and Floriane Malinski / Sound design: Jack McWeeney / Production: Camille Rault-Verprey / Administration: Aurélia Delescluse / Costumes: Charlotte Chazarenc