L’étendue – Renaud Herbin (FR)

The performer watches in amazement as a thick square pillow, almost life-size, spits out colourful wool threads. “À qui mieux mieux” plays with the naive enthusiasm with which children discover the world. How they enter into a sensitive relationship with things and develop an understanding for which there is no rational explanation. In contact with matter, the performer, a kind of clown who seems to have fallen from the sky and been thrown into life, discovers that he is alive. In the process, he develops an unfiltered language, trying to explain word by word his sensations – a joyful struggle to find himself in the world and to be himself.

For 10 years Renaud Herbin was the artistic director of the TJP Strasbourg, one of the most important production sites for contemporary puppet and object theatre in Europe, and was a guest at the international figuren.theater.festival with numerous productions. In 2019 he opened the festival with “At the Still Point of the Turning World”. After the end of his directorship, he now continues his work with the newly founded company L’étendue. This year’s program also includes the piece “Par les bords”.