Fanny de Chaillé

F a n n y d e C h a illé
association display
PRESS: Je suis un metteur en scène japonais
& Gonzo Conférence
Télérama.fr – March 2012
“I am a Japanese stage director”, dance-theatre-performance
Fanny de Chaillé is a protean artist, difficult to track. She is sometimes an actress
(for Gwenaël Morin), or a dancer (for Daniel Larrieu), most of the times a performer
and a choreographer of her own adventures… After fifteen years of trials of all
kinds, she is now associated artist to the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale (Paris)
where she has directed her first real theater piece based on a text – fragments of
Minetti (by Thomas Bernhard). The risks she took brought a brilliant show.
The interpreters, dressed in black, are in turn manipulators and manipulated,
according to a system inspired by Japanese Bunraku, a traditional art where puppets
are handled in plain sight. Quoting Dany Laferrière in the title, Je suis un metteur
en scène japonais, Fanny de Chaillé “pretends” as well, that she perfectly mastered
this ancient art. On stage, the show becomes a hilarious parody of bunraku at the
rhythm of a ukulele, at the same time shedding a serious and precise light on
Minetti.
Another facet of her talent is shown by the Gonzo Conférence, which has been
presented all over France since 2007. Fanny de Chaillé herself manipulates the
dancer (Christine Bombal) only through her voice, standing in front of a lectern.
On the stage, the dancer becomes the rock star while Chaillé tells the story of her
adolescent passion for rock’n’roll and how she turned to theatre.
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Première / Le Pariscope – 21-27 th November 2012
“I am a Japanese stage director”
This quirky and disconcerting show converts hybridization into a subtle and pleasant
art. Fanny de Chaillé invents a delightful scenic form between dance, theatre and
performance, as well as traditional oriental arts. Fanny de Chaillé does not come
from the Land of the Rising Sun, but collects dreams about Japanese culture
and confronts them with other aspects. As a result, she seizes the Bunraku, the
Japanese ancient art of puppeteering with a musician and a narrator at the edge of
the stage. But instead of following the codes of this genre, Fanny de Chaillé only
keeps the narrative structure. With amazing pertinence, she samples the codes of
bunraku puppets and Minetti, a key piece of work in the German literature about
the art of acting. She does the splits between body, voice and live music to better
reinvent the conventions of artistic representation.
Fanny de Chaillé offers here a creative and stunning performance.
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La Terrasse – 23 rd November 2012
Fanny de Chaillé mixes her fantasies on Japanese theatre and Minetti by
Thomas Bernhard.
Is it a play? Dance? Music? A performance? Fanny de Chaillé has long freed
herself from these “genre” questions, combining arts and codes confidently and
mischievously mixing avant-garde, tradition and popular practices. In Je suis un
metteur en scène japonais (“I am a Japanese stage director”), she gives her own
vision of bunraku. « I have never been to Japan but I have been reading a lot of
books dealing with Japanese theatre, and whenever I meet a person who has
witnessed a Noh, Kabuki or Bunraku play, I ask her to describe what she saw.
I wish to create a piece out of these fantasies, which I build according to these
readings and tales.”
She questions the artifices of theater in her own way: inventively and mischievously.
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Paris-Art Magazine
Creating a play from stories
Fanny de Chaillé once read I am a Japanese writer by Dany Laferrière, and she
kept the title in mind because of the questions raised in the book.
She has never been to Japan but has been reading books dealing with Japanese
theatre and whenever she meets someone that has witnessed a Noh, a Kabuki or
a Bunkaru play, she asks the person to describe what he/she saw. She then uses
her readings and meetings to imagine what this type of theatre is, to compare with
what she knows about the world of the theatre and to realize a play from all this.
Fanny de Chaillé uses the Japanese ancient and traditional art of puppeteering:
the Bunraku. She takes the traditional structure and amends crucial details. The
puppet is a real man, the musician does not play shamizen but ukulele and the
narrator does not tell a legendary story but a text from Thomas Bernhard, Minetti.
The Bunraku fans might be frustrated but this stage director does not want to
reproduce this type of theatre. “I am not interested in the puppet but in how everyone
contribute to create an image. It might be frustrating for those on stage, they only
perform a part of reality of this image which can only be seen from the outside. But
that is what interests me in the Bunraku.”
Sortir à Paris – 1 st October 2012
The return of Fanny de Chaillé to the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale
Je suis un metteur en scène japonais (“I am a Japanese stage director”) is a
success for Fanny de Chaillé. From the 3 rd to the 21 st of December, the Théâtre
de la Cité Internationale programs this unusual and intriguing play inspired by the
codes of the Japanese ancient art of puppeteering, the Bunraku.
The puppet is the main character of Fanny de Chaillé’s play, but not being 100%
Japanese, she does some minor changes on this traditional art. The puppet is a real
person, the musician does not play shamizen but ukulele and the narrator does not
tell a legendary story but a text by Thomas Bernhard… Je suis un metteur en scène
japonais is based on the Japanese tradition but is also modern and experimental.
Fanny de Chaillé has never been to Japan, but that is how she imagines the Japanese
theatre. By reading books and questioning people, she develops a certain image of
this art and presents what her imagination thinks it knows, her dreams etc…
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Inferno – 28 th November 2012
Fanny de Chaillé once read I am a Japanese writer by Dany Laferrière, and kept
the title in mind because of the questions raised in the book.
Having never been to Japan, she has been reading books dealing with Japanese
theatre and when she meets someone that has seen a Noh, a Kabuki or a Bunraku
play, she asks the person to describe what he/she saw. She then uses her readings
and meetings to imagine what this type of theatre is, to compare with what she
knows about the world of the theatre and to create a play from all this.
She takes the traditional structure of the Japanese ancient art of puppeteering,
the Bunraku (a giant puppet, a narrator, a musician) and gives her personal touch.
The puppet is a real person, the musician does not play shamizen but ukulele, and
the legendary story is replaced by German literary monument Minetti, by Thomas
Bernhard.
None of these changes makes us travel to either Europe or Japan, but they lead us
to an intermediate fantastical place where images of Japan are combined with the
western theatre.