For the photo, the artists Mycelium, Aunerade Baguaece and Lari Jalbert pose in front of a hearse, dressed all in black.
Black is a nod to Barbara, the black of her clothes, her piano, her eagle. Deeply moved by the singer’s work, Mycelium, a trans man, made it the theme of his show. borboroin the title role, is a puppet that the artist created, a sort of “failed male counterpart” of Barbara, in a “fallen rock star” style, he says.
Barbara, the artist Mycelium cherishes her, since he discovered her a few years ago. “It’s like falling in love. When we love Barbara, we love her devouringly. I fell into Barbara. There was a kind of filiation, something strong, an invisible bond. She was an incest survivor,” he says.
Trained in theatre, but also in interdisciplinary studies of sexuality, Mycelium put years of research on childhood sexual abuse into this show, even if he did not design it as a confession, nor about those that he himself suffered nor about those suffered by others.
“I don’t want to exploit my own traumatic memory or that of Barbara,” he said, specifying that the abuse he suffered did not fall under incest. “There is nothing in the show which comes from a denomination”, he says, nor from the elements of Barbara’s life. “His presence in the show is through songs. And again, I didn’t choose songs that talk about abuse, Nantesfor example, or In the middle of the night. »
A metaphor for abuse
The abuse here therefore takes more the form of a metaphor. “The abuser is not the center of the show. He also says he feels “a great weariness” of the lack of cultural content that surrounds the revelations around abuse.
“I did several projects around it,” he says, adding that drama therapy accompanied him in the process.
Mycelium presents its performance as “science-fairy”. He also wanted to respect three elements inherent in the form of the tale, namely a short text, with elements of magic, and which ends well.
“I wrote a text, it’s a lot of stand-up. I have a wired microphone and I tell jokes,” he says.
In this science-fairy story, Borboro is the rock fairy. He comes from a distant place, the enchanting forest. “It’s in another dimension, not on Earth,” he says. Then, in 1999, Borboro finds himself in our dimension. “He’s not well and he wants to go home. He is looking for the exit portal. That’s his main quest. »
Mycelium likes to present this theatrical creation as an organic production, in which the fairies themselves and the puppets collaborated, not to mention his acolytes, Aunerade Baguaece and Lari Jalbert. Charles Voyer, author of the work The guardian of children, presented at OFFTA in 2022, participated in the dramaturgy. Lari Jalbert adds a musical touch to the whole, even if all of Barbara’s songs are interpreted in lipsync.
“It’s impossible to ask for Barbara’s consent because she’s dead,” he said. I did my best to do this with as much respect as possible. »
“I was careful not to use his story as a narrative device,” he says. The presence of Barbara’s ghost takes the form of homage. She has something mystical. She presented herself, wrists in front, like someone with stigmata. She was a figure of a saint for her fans who adored her, who adored her. »
Barbara’s revelations about the incest suffered, in her unfinished autobiography, He was a black piano… brought to light the metaphor behind the song The black Eagle.
“What’s amazing about Barbara is that she was able to turn the worst things into pearls,” he says. She has something of the sweet diva, who had a lot of self-determination, and who sanctifies her objects, like her grand piano. »
After having sought its path in theater in institutions which, “ten years ago”, were not very open to the queer and trans world, Mycelium turned in particular to the cheap artand its forms of production “ Do-It-Yourself or homemade. He found inspiration in puppet theater, like the American Bread and Puppet Theater, rooted in political debates and the defense of civil rights.