Trô'ma

TRÔ’MA humorously and poetically questions the (excessive) pressure that our top athletes are often subjected to.

THE PROJECT

Sport is synonymous with pushing oneself beyond one’s limits, daring, determination, and endurance. These values have shaped the mythology of sport and nourished societies throughout history. Through relentless effort, athletes experience victory or defeat. Their strengths and weaknesses are then subjected to intense scrutiny. The challenge is to overcome fear, fatigue, and media pressure while remaining competitive, brilliant, and flawless. Marie-José PEREC, a living phenomenon embodying the supremacy of female speed, remains an iconic figure of strength, courage, and determination. With her unique and universal character, she defied the laws of the gods of the stadium. As European champion, world champion, and triple Olympic champion, her record remains unmatched to this day. Marie-José PEREC has left a lasting mark on the universal collective memory. Her races drew the public into her eminently real and palpable dream of a quest for absolute victory. But what is the price to pay for this meteoric rise? It is through the image of this great athlete that dancers Jean-Luc Mégange and Stella Moutou, along with video and sound creator Thyeks (Thierry Girard), will question the world of high-level sport, where body and mind are put to the test. It was following an awareness campaign in Guadeloupe that James Carlès met the performers involved in the project. He has since followed and supported them, and the desire arose to carry out an ambitious project with them, with the help of Artchipel, Scène Nationale de Guadeloupe, CDC les Hivernales, and Réseau Culture France (Caraïbes).

AUDIOVISUAL QUESTIONING

The creation is based around the concept of the box, which represents confinement. It is in this sense that the multimedia intervention questions the following two aspects. The first is the psychology of the athlete, in an attempt to represent what is going on in their head, their stress, their “nerve connections,” taking up the idea of positioning oneself inside their skull. The second aspect is the analogy with the other box, the television, which is a source of fame and visibility, but also of pressure and media and financial aggression through brands seeking to be represented via the image of top-level athletes. The diversion of flashes aims to play on two aspects. The flash of victory, synonymous with success, and that of paparazzi aggression.