Before making dolls, I happened to be one myself…
Once upon a time (in 2001 actually but it seems to me another life), I had a "street theatre experience". Unforgettable glimpse. And guess who I incarnated, in the midst of the hooked or hesitant passer-bys: a doll...
Two actors, no words, a music box, handmade special effects. Here was our street show: Moonénimue.
The plot? Well, we were not quite sure…....
As a matter of fact, even if it may read a bit vacuous, Moonénimue was inevitably a love story as its fulfilment sprang from the meeting of two persons who could join in the same dreams.
In the absence of any experience, we instilled in our show our passion for performing arts (as spectators), our little universe and our desire to create together something of our own. ....
The icing on the cake was to play it in the streets in the south of France for one summer (a fantasy I guess for frozen-stiff northern French people) and though no one around us believed it would work, we did it: a journey we came back from with stars in our eyes.
We gave a few performances in venues in our hometown but for us, the spell of the Street was broken. Or maybe was it the end of summer.
Then, whereas my partner yearned for words, I still believed that mere images could tell stories. My imagination was full of masks, marionettes, visual tricks: "A solid dress which opens as a gate!" "Or, what about clothes made with parts of the character's life!" would I exhaust him: so many ideas which turned out to be unfeasible with little money, only 2 people, for a light and transportable set, studies to follow... And somehow, fading motive. I carried on filling papers with sketches and ideas for a while but a new show never took shape.
Since then, needing to create, I looked, unsure, for other ways of expression until the encounter of a book about how to make dolls with socks proved to be a turning point… ;)
To be continued J ....
I still don't know if our show was "good" but it remains beautiful photos, I think, and here are a few of them.
