Photo — Valérie Remise
Onstage, a series of short portraits. Eight protagonists, chosen for their unique lives and their surprising way of telling their stories. Individuals from very different backgrounds (none of them are actors) between whom a multitude of connections form. Their voices—captured live, magnified with an immersive sound treatment and combined with their presence onstage—preserve all the authenticity of spontaneous speech that can’t be repeated.
With Pas perdus | documentaires scéniques, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and Émile Proulx-Cloutier explore our relationship with memory, transmission, language, what we carry within ourselves and the space we make for joy. Each scenic documentary tells the story of a human voice in all its individuality and pushes us to rethink how we see individuals, environments and stories.
WHAT IS A SCENIC DOCUMENTARY?
After Vrais mondes and Pôle Sud, Pas perdus is the third show by the duo Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette and Émile Proulx-Cloutier. At the origin of this theatrical form is a two-fold question. How can we recreate the authenticity of documentary cinema without using actors or without imposing the limitations of memorization and acting on “real people”? How can we bring together the extraordinary proximity of theatre and the gripping spontaneity of documentary cinema?
The duo’s idea is to prioritize the immense evocative power of sound: to go—without a camera—to meet people who generously tell their story to Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s microphone. After that is the editing phase: out of the hours of recordings, only particular moments are selected. Narrative arcs are targeted, and certain connections between stories are highlighted. Finally, it is transferred to the stage: a scenic environment and natural actions are created that allow these people to embody sound portraits without having to act. Since there is no intermediary, the audience is invited right into their personal experience, respecting the story of each person, which creates a highly intense exchange.
