A stage presence with a thousand and one faces, the puppet has seen its definition enriched with various forms over time. From its inhabited version (which slips on like a costume) to shadow theater or object theatre, it is preparing, on the occasion of the International Festival of Puppetry Arts in Saguenay (FIAMS), to take over the city’s parks and halls. This one, in parallel, will even be the hostess of the general assembly of the Association of the friendly cities of the puppet, which will take place for the first time in America.
Among the invited companies, the Motus theater (to whom we owe Baobabwhose popularity, on our stages and abroad, has been undeniable since its creation in 2008) will present no less than three plays there: Tree, everyoneaimed at young people living with autism spectrum disorder, its toddler adaptation, simply titled TREEas well as a co-production with Senegal and Burkina Faso, Word of water. This latest creation sprang from a meeting between the Quebecer Hélène Ducharme and the Senegalese Mamby Mawine.
A Canadian child does not necessarily know that in Africa you can turn on the tap and the water does not flow, or that people have to walk for miles to get it.
The two women were among the fifteen artists brought together in Belgium in 2003 by the International Commission for Francophone Theater to promote exchanges between creators from all over the world. They had been brooding since the desire to unite their voices. So when Ducharme learned that Mawine wanted to explore the theme of water, there was no question of her missing the boat. From North America to West Africa, “we are really in extremes, underlines the co-artistic director of Motus. It was fascinating to dive into this universe together”.
So emerge from this show, which they perform together in addition to having signed the text and the staging, the differences between the links that the inhabitants of the northern and southern hemispheres maintain with water. “A Canadian child does not necessarily know that in Africa, you can turn on the tap and the water does not flow, or that people have to walk for miles to get it, explains Mamby Mawine, contacted in Senegal. And when we play here, young people learn that snow can block the door and that we can spend hours shoveling to clear the way. For us, the snow is beautiful, it melts and that’s it. »
Make you think without lecturing
It would have been very difficult for the director of the Djarama company (which is also the name of an art center for young people that she co-founded), to approach the theme of water without mentioning the “chores” associated with the need to obtain it… and the gender inequalities that persist in this regard. If she has never been afraid to deal with delicate subjects – such as girls’ access to education and excision – she even considers theater to be a formidable tool for raising awareness, even for claiming. However, it seemed important to the two creators, in terms of Word of waterto avoid falling into didacticism or, even worse, into moralizing.
However, it is the puppet that lent them a hand in this quest. Mawine and Ducharme preferred, at times, to let the images do the talking for them. As in a scene where little female puppets, constructed from gourds, painfully cross the playground with containers on their heads.
This is because the visual research — which involves puppets made of a multitude of materials, therefore plastic bottles — was developed at the same time as the text, and not following it. It was the same with music. Equipped with percussion, a Fulani flute and a n’goni (an African guitar), the Burkinabe musician Dramane Dembélé participated in all stages of the creation. “His music punctuated our words,” recalls Mamby Mawine. And when various forms of water (dirty water, rain…) are represented by fabrics, it is she who gives them a voice. »
If it is embodied by textiles, it is because it immediately appeared clear to the duo that there would be no manipulation of water in the show dedicated to it, apart from a small sip shared by the artists halfway through. Moreover, Hélène Ducharme became aware of the colossal quantities of blue gold that are usually consumed on tour: “To wash costumes, for showers, for coffee… But how to change these habits? »
Ecological considerations are certainly a major issue in the world of the performing arts. We try to reuse scenographic elements, to promote eco-responsibility within productions, although transporting the artists by plane (and their sets by boat) is not without environmental effects. Whether Word of water is the “easiest to transport” show that Motus has created, since it fits in three suitcases, Mamby Mawine is more than familiar with this material minimalism: “As soon as I started doing theatre, it was a necessity. In Senegal, financial resources are very limited. Automatically, we say to ourselves that we must make it small. As she and her accomplice will present their creation again in January at the Maison Théâtre and as she is also one of the associate artists of the Quebec company Le Carrousel, we have probably not finished learning from her – to paraphrase one of the titles of the late Rock Demers – how to be big while being small.