With three shows over the past year, it’s an understatement to say that the Théâtre de La Sentinelle is making its way.
One week apart, the young company presents My name is Muhammad Ali at the Threepenny and toss the coin Which is a Basquiatat the Salle Jean-Claude-Germain, where she began a residency. “The two texts speak to us, each in their own way, of our identity, explains the artistic director of La Sentinelle, Philippe Racine. From the relationship to our identity as Black Quebecers or newly Quebecois immigrants. And the pieces approach these great black American figures from another angle: the way they resonate with us, Quebecers. »
Icons that transcend their origins and identity. “Talking about Ali is not talking about the American who fought for black rights and against [la guerre au] Viet Nam! It’s more than that. It is our humanity that he defends, through the afrocentric prism. And so do we, that’s what we do in our shows. We propose, from the angle of the Blacks, to reflect collectively. »
These are two productions where La Sentinelle also dares to “set the bar high enough to inspire”. One year later Who wants Antigone’s skin? (at the Espace libre), the actor thus performs a second successive solo, “one of the most demanding theatrical forms”, with Which is a Basquiat.
Philippe Racine’s interest in Jean-Michel Basquiat, a cult artist who, coincidentally, will be the subject of an exhibition starting in October at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Full Volume: Basquiat and Music), dates back more than 20 years. “Much younger, I was tagging, I was doing graffiti. I was a bit in the street world, without necessarily being a bum. However, I did not know Basquiat. It was only at university that a friend introduced him to the young man from Joliette. “I said, ‘Wow, when I was doodling in my notebooks, it looked like this.’ [Rires] I discovered an echo of who I was, which existed elsewhere. He felt “disturbing” connections with Jean-Michel Basquiat, also of Haitian origin, who began his career drawing graffiti in New York.
An important moment in his career as an artist, where he created a model for himself. “I took Basquiat and molded it my way. I left out his heroin addiction and things that aren’t me, but might have been in a parallel universe, if something had gone wrong. It’s a reflection in the show too: what made me take another path, when I’m so close to him? Is it my social environment, my personality? It is called into question, poetized, in the play. »
Racine immediately began to write about this shooting star (1960-1988). “The first writings started from his paintings. The text, a version of which was broadcast at the Never Read Festival in 2012, was built up over the course of rewritings. “Each time I took it out of my drawers, it was still relevant. It’s funny, huh? And it’s sad at the same time, because it’s about our condition too. »
He qualifies as work in progress this evolving spectacle. “He has followed me for 20 years, he will continue to follow me. »
Three entities
The title Which is a Basquiat can be understood both as a question and as an affirmation, “in the sense: I am that person, but I am also other”. The performer in fact embodies three “poles” in the solo: Basquiat, the “historical reference”; Philippe, the autofictional entity; and his fictional alter ego, Samy, a gifted young Montreal graffiti artist who is offered a golden bridge to become a Basquiat forger. At the risk of losing himself.
Paralleling counterfeiter of art and “forger of the soul”, the story highlights a quest for existential authenticity. The themes are developed “in bulk”. “Like a painting by Basquiat! he specifies. What comes from Basquiat, what comes from me? It will be blurry. And I chat with people during the show. It’s not just a performance. There is also an exchange. »
This identity ambiguity has followed Philippe Racine in his artistic approach for a long time. He learned to accept it. “Before, it was disturbing for me, and I think that’s what some new Quebecers can feel: an almost schizophrenic feeling when faced with the question ‘Who am I? I am Quebecer, Haitian, both?” An identity disorder from which Quebec itself is not exempt…
I took Basquiat and molded it my way. I left out his heroin addiction and things that aren’t me, but might have been in a parallel universe, if something had gone wrong. It’s a reflection in the show too…
Between pictorial art and a musical conception that he signs himself, the solo will be truly multidisciplinary, like its creator. “I will soon be doing this job for 20 years, and I have acquired several strings that I have stretched to my bow,” he says. I wanted this kind of synthesis of what I did. And Basquiat was also multiple. Before painting, he was a DJ, he had a music group. » An artistic side underground that he wants to discover.
“The show is how Basquiat me [touche] and influenced my life. But I also want people to take the time to look at Basquiat and ask themselves this question: how does this artist and what he paints speak to me? »
From one to nine
My name is Muhammad Ali was first premiered at the last Festival TransAmériques, where the reaction was “super good”. The text by Congolese Dieudonné Niangouna draws an analogy between the fight of the famous pugilist and that of a black actor who will play him. A perilous struggle, despite a respectful opponent. “For the actor, it’s the same thing, says Philippe Racine laughing: we want the respect of the public, but it’s still dangerous to go on stage. We can stumble, be misunderstood… The text is very well written on these parallels between what Ali the boxer and, above all, the activist experienced and what the actor experiences, who seeks his place in the world, but also the way of claiming it, of expressing it. »
Written for the Burkinabe Étienne Minoungou, the metaphor nevertheless transposes well here. ” That [le personnage] tells us about his condition as an African in a western, westernized world, also speaks to me as a Quebecer in a world where I am a minority. »
The production, which Racine co-directs with Tatiana Zinga Botao, transformed this monologue into a choral score for nine Afro-descendant performers. Among the many reasons that motivated this choice, there is that “to illustrate, to impose on stage the presence of different black personalities. L'[objectif] is to say that we are not a monolithic block. Just because I talk about black people doesn’t mean I represent black people; I give my point of view. And on stage, it’s a bit the same thing. It is about exposing the diversity of interpretations, each with its own uniqueness. ” And [on remarque] in the audience of people who feel good to see this representativeness. »