JOHANN LE GUILLERM and his team of ten fitters will place their one hundred and fifty three-metre long wooden planks to launch the installation of the two successive versions of LA TRANSUMANTE at Les Tombées de la Nuit. This incredible wooden creature, half plant, half animal, takes shape hour by hour, with an appearance alternating between an insect shell or wooden structure, by balancing the wooden planks, using no nails, screws, nuts and bolts, glue or ropes. Only the pressure between the planks holds the structure together. There is a real magic in seeing the creation come together throughout the day during installation and witnessing each incredible stage in the development of a structure that can reach a surface area of 200 m2 and rise up to four metres high. This pop-up creation draws life from its mutations before disappearing in the early hours of the morning. Its shape is never set in stone and is determined by a delicate balancing act as the result of opposing forces working together.
JOHANN LE GUILLERM is a tightrope walker, juggler and clown who also designs and works with objects. He is one of those fully versatile artists who build up a contemporary portfolio over the years that cannot be categorised. From overlapping impressive wooden and iron machines to assembling colossal structures, his art falls somewhere between circus, art installations and living object theatre. His collapsible sculptures have both strength and fragility, and the artist focuses on both the performance of the moment and their organised destruction. These works are designed to experiment further with fragile balance, imperfect movement and random geometry. He builds them and then destroys them without batting an eyelid. For years, he has been presenting the same research project, which shape-shifts between each representation.
LA TRANSUMANTE was created for “Nuit Blanche 2014” at Place du Panthéon in Paris and will be presented twice at Les Tombées de la Nuit, once in the day and once at night, on Esplanade Charles de Gaulle and Mail François Mitterrand.
BIOGRAPHY
JOHANN LE GUILLERM trained in the first class to graduate from the French National Centre for Circus Arts (CNAC). He toured with Archaos, helped create Volière Dromesko and co-founded Cirque O. He then started to work alone, gradually cleansing his shows of traditional circus practices, before founding his own company in 1994, CIRQUE ICI. His first solo performance, Où ça? toured for five years and received the French National Circus Award (Grand Prix National du Cirque) in 1996. From 2002, he worked on Attraction, a research project that experimented with balance, shapes, perspectives, movement and impermanence, pushing aside traditional circus disciplines. In the long term, the project gradually came to focus on a theatre show (Secret), a spoken performance (Le Pas Grand Chose, 2017) and, above all, installations including La Motte, Les Imperceptibles (moving sculptures), Les Architextures (self-supporting sculptures), Les Imaginographes (observation tools, etc.). In 2013, he created La Déferlante for the Big Top at La Villette and in 2014, La Transumante for Nuit Blanche, at Place du Panthéon in Paris. JOHANN LE GUILLERM received the SACD Circus Arts Award in 2005 and since 2011 has been supported by Paris City Council with a residency at the Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale.
DISTRIBUTION
Création : Johann Le Guillerm / Avec : Johann Le Guillerm, Cyril Nesci, Franck Bonnot, Loeïz Le Guillerm, Alexandre Ramdani, Alexandre Piques, Lionnel Usandivaras, Julie lesas / Production : Cirque ici – Johann Le Guillerm/ Création Nuit Blanche 2014, Ville de Paris
COPRODUCTIONS
Le Channel, Scène nationale de Calais / Agora, Pôle national des arts du cirque de Boulazac Aquitaine / Excentrique, festival mis en oeuvre par Culture O Centre, Ateliers de développement culturel Le Manège, Scène nationale de Reims / L’ Apostrophe, Scène nationale de Cergy – Pontoise et du val d’Oise / Le Quartz, Scène nationale de Brest / Le Volcan, Scène nationale du Havre 2 Pôles Cirque en Normandie, La Brèche à Cherbourg – Cirque – Théâtre d’Elbeuf / Théâtre de l’Agora, Scène nationale d’Evry et de l’Essonne / Les Treize Arches, Scène conventionnée de Brive / TANDEM, Théâtre d’Arras – Hippodrome de Douai, Scène nationale / Archaos, Pôle national des Arts du Cirque Méditerranée / Le Grand T, Théâtre de Loire Atlantique / Le Monfort, Paris / CREAC de Bègles
Created for “Nuit Blanche 2014″ – Paris
AVEC LE SOUTIEN DU
Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication ( DGCA et DRAC Ile-de-France ), du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères ( Institut Français ), du Conseil régional d’Ile-de-France, du Conseil départemental de l’Essonne ,de la Ville de Paris et de l’Institut Français / Ville de Paris, Cirque ici.
Johann Le Guillerm est soutenu et accueilli par la Mairie de Paris en résidence de recherche au Jardin d’Agronomie Tropicale ( Direction de la Culture et Direction des Espaces Verts et de l’Environnement ).
