“One-man choreographic performance in public space” PATRICE DE BÉNÉDETTI is no stranger to the festival, and has worked with both the Les Sirventès and Ex-Nihilo companies. Here, he takes us on a beautiful choreographic spoken performance with this one-man piece designed to be performed at a war memorial. JEAN offers a stirring homage to Jean Jaurès, BÉNÉDETTI’s father and “all the French and Germans that went to war”, and a tribute to today’s major social struggles with poignant and bitter poetry in the form of haikus. In response, a passion-filled body, sometimes broken or on crutches, steps between the words to illustrate and react in forms taken from Japanese Butoh. This tired soldier travels through time to make us think about the unspeakable aspects of the bloodbath that was the First World War (the performance was created for the 100-year anniversary of 1914), the ongoing nature of major social struggles and how we view the proletarian struggle. This dancer, choreographer and author achieves a result that is tender, incandescent and kind, celebrating giving and hope in a fine-cut, delicate and sensitive show. This autumn, PATRICE DE BÉNÉDETTI brings a memorial back to life, turning it into a stage in Rennes city centre. The performance will then be played at Cimetière de l’Est graveyard in early November, where the artist will convert the silence of the stone platform into a celebration of life, in a masterful choreographic transformation of a place of remembrance and reverence.