"Qu'est-ce que tu deviens ?", like the English, "What's up?", is a question as banal as it is terrifying; it asks what you have become. It says that time has passed and that changes have occurred. It questions the choices made, and demands an on-the-spot assessment. It freezes the process of becoming, which is by nature in motion. It shows interest in the person asked, and even love, yet it can also be a sign of disinterest or disenchantment. It is a warning signal, a sting. There is despair in the way it asks, "What have you become?", yet hope is what drives evolution. It forces us to look at the known realm behind us, while the process of becoming propels us into the future, into the unknown.

The meeting

I met Stéphanie Fuster in Toulouse, before she left for Seville to immerse herself completely in flamenco. I was touched by her special sensitivity, her amazing personality, the radical nature of her choice: to abandon everything in order to devote herself to it completely. She stayed there for eight years learning to be a répétitrice, then a dancer with the greatest names in dancing. She came back with her dance and asked me to write a show for her. I first thought that that was out of keeping with the areas of my work, which is mainly geared to the question of space. Then I changed my mind. There was of course a divergence. But that divergence was also present in her career; she who had decided to confront an art belonging to another culture, who had the status of an intruder in a symbolic discipline. I gradually realized that it was her portrait I wanted to do. A stage portrait. To imagine the space on stage which is that of her career in other climes, and to imagine her dancing, which is that of her inner, emotional range. Flamenco is there, certainly, with José Sanchez on the guitar and Alberto Garcia singing, but in a different context, that of a woman in search of herself, who is emancipated, who lives and who dies.

Source : Cie 111

Aurélien Bory was born in Colmar in 1972. His studies in physics in Strasbourg led him to the field of architectural acoustics.  He then ended his scientific curriculum in 1995.  He settled in Toulouse where he joined the creative studio at the Lido, the Circus Arts Centre. In 1998, he played in Theatre Tattoo's "L'Odyssée" directed by Mladen Materic.  In 2000 he founded Compagnie 111 with actor Olivier Alenda.  He then conceived and began the six-year-long space trilogy project, in collaboration with Phil Soltanoff, including "IJK", "Plan B" and "Plus ou moins l'infini" (More or less, Infinity).
In 2003 he directed Pierre Rigal in his first solo creation Erection, the stem of their ungoing collaboration, which also originated their second work together: Arrêts de Jeu premiered in 2006. Merging various other fields, he created "Taoub" in 2004 in Tangier with twelve moroccan acrobats, this very show will launch the international career of the Groupe acrobatique de Tanger (Tangier Acrobatic Group).  In 2008 Aurélien was the recipient of the "Créateur sans frontières" (Creator without borders)/ Radio France trophy for his international creations, notably "Les sept planches de la ruse" (The seven boards of skill) created in China in 2007 with performers from Dalian. In 2008 and 2009, he conceived two creations: "Questcequetudeviens?", a portrait of a woman, and "Sans Objet", a piece for an industrial robot. His creations include different artistic fields : theatre, circus, dance, visual arts, music...  His genre-crossing approach is inscribed within the question of space and is explored through his distinctive scenography. In 2016, he created "ESPÆCE" based on the French writer Georges Perec 's work, at the Festival d'Avignon (France).

Source: Company 111 's website ; Plan Bey 's press file

More information : cie111.com

Artistic Direction: Aurélien Bory

Creation: 2000

The stage is a space. It can be defined as the rectangular plane of the stage-platform and the equivalent volume of air. This space is the only medium where one cannot escape the laws of general mechanics. This particularity is important to me. Both bodies and objects are inescapably subjected to gravity. My proposition is to summon the means of the body, as well as the means of the stage, whatever they may be, to contemplate this fact. Bodies and objects both are relevant regarding gravity. The relationship between the individual and space, every single element of this relation, is what I am interested in studying on stage.
 

Our theater apprehends the stage as a physical space, where physical actions are formulated. Etymologically, the actor is performing the action. A play is a serie of actions. At the circus, the extraordinary is foretold. It’s not so at the theater ; it shows up by surprise. At the circus the extraordinary-being is invoked, whereas at the theater, we come and see our fellowman. The stage is a world. The actor dwells there, in this space, and the issue is to question the place of man in the world. My starting point is the interaction between these two elements: the scenic space as a world, and the actors as the ordinary men.
 

The issue of space raises the question of limits. The limit is the unknown. It sharpens our craving for discovery. It embodies the place of creation. Our theater is at the junction of different arts : the circus, dance, visual arts, music… but our concern to renew the form and the thrill to remain unlabelled are more important than belonging to a definite field. I’d rather the form emerged at the edge of things.
 

My work originates from different contexts. My every collaboration can be contemplated as a crossbreeding between different, converging fields. Each creation can be inscribed at the crossroad with another definite context : belonging to an artist’s, or to a place, to a practice, or a particular domain… In each case, my process remains the same : we need to push things around to the fringe, at the place of wonderings.

Source : Cie 111 's website

More information : cie111.com