Based on Kafka’s short story First Sorrow, Philippe Hersant composed a “miniature opera” illustrated as a circus by Gaëtan Lévêque, and put to words by Elise Vigier and Frédérique Loliée from the Théâtre des Lucioles and Leslie Kaplan. Over several scenes, singers, instrumentalists, circus artists and actors tell the story of a trapeze artist who lives only for his art, who eats and sleeps on his trapeze, and who is suddenly seized by doubt about the meaning of his work and his life. The story uses circus art as a metaphor for human life, highlighting how we can juggle (with our hands and with our lives), take risks, lose our balance, fall down, get up again... and never stop dreaming, desiring, to finally (in the words of Kafka) “find a way out”.

Philippe Hersant has worked on a musical composition inspired by the Czech author-s story First Sorrow, leaving openings for spoken texts. Six singers [2 sopranos, a viola, a tenor, a baritone, a bass] and two instrumentalists [violin and viola] will perform these compositions.

http://www.lepluspetitcirquedumonde.fr/kafka-dans-les-villes/

19 March 2018 – Premiere in Caen (CDN)

Festival SPRING

On tour from April 2018

KAFKA DANS LES VILLES / EXTRAIT#1 from Ensemble SEQUENZA 9.3 on Vimeo.

KAFKA DANS LES VILLES / EXTRAIT#2 / LES FANTOMES from Ensemble SEQUENZA 9.3 on Vimeo.

KAFKA DANS LES VILLES / EXTRAIT#3 / PLOUM PLOUM from Ensemble SEQUENZA 9.3 on Vimeo.