FACE NORD

Un loup pour l’homme, France

With : Alexandre Fray, Mika Lafforgue, Arno Ferrera, Sergi Parés

Dramaturgy : Bauke Lievens

Sound design : Jean-Damien Ratel

Light design : Thierry Robert

Costumes : Emmanuelle Grobet

Technical team : Pierre-Jean Faggiani, Laurent Mulowsky

Administration : Caroline Cardoso

Tour management : Lou Henry

Coproduction : L’Hippodrome de Douai – Le Bateau Feu / Scène nationale Dunkerque – Festival Theater Op de Markt, Neerpelt (Belgique) – Cirque théâtre d’Elbeuf, Centre des arts du cirque de Haute-Normandie- Le Sirque, Pôle Cirque de Nexon en Limousin- EPPGHV, La Villette, Paris – Equinoxe- Scène nationale de Châteauroux

Public partners : DRAC Nord pas de calais – Région Nord pas de calais – DGCA

Running time: 50`

The circus company “Un loup pour l’homme”, through its approach of acrobatic hand to hand balancing, aims at defending a vision of humanity made up of social individuals, as different as they are dependent from each other. Enamored of power and freedom, the acrobat appears relentlessly grappling with his own limits. Standing the strain of his relation to the other, man reveals his greatness and weakness, the complexity of his human nature. The origins of Un loup pour l’homme lie in the encounter between two acrobats, the French Alexandre Fray and the Frédéric Arsenault from Quebec. Triggered by two shows created under the direction of Guy Alloucherie, they decide in 2005 to initiate a specific research on their approach of hand to hand balancing. To them, these acrobatics are not only a raw material to give shape to, but primarily a strong relationship between two men.

Four acrobats put into play the sure strength and power of their living bodies. Their path is an obstacle course, made up of surprising and playful acrobatic games in which they constantly invent the rules. Walking, running, catching, climbing further, always moving forward. Even knowing they will lose, that does not prevent them from struggling, as these four acrobats tell us, obstinately obliging themselves to the feat and relishing each challenge, taking us together with their bodies to the limits of their physiological reality and at the edges of the laws of physics. “Face Nord”is an attempt to revive in humankind the playful innocence of a child, hence the origins and essential values of our acrobatic quest.

Through Face Nord, the four accomplices brings a vision of circus art conceived as an art of action in the service of a search for humanity.

Aurore Lemaître

This show is presented in the framework of the project Ride&Camp, supported by Teatroskop (network) and City of Lille.