Barbe bleue

Barbe Bleue invites the very young dancers of the Groupe Grenade, aged ten to fourteen, to reinvent Perrault’s fabulous tale. A modern and offbeat version, somewhere between contemporary rock and opera.

“Twenty years ago, punks were taking the world by storm, and I created Barbe Bleue for around thirty children, largely inspired by the dark and crazy world of Perrault’s famous tale. The connection between the usual energy of children and the rebellious, violent, and provocative characteristics of punks was striking! Barbe Bleue was a solitary figure, cynical and fragile at the same time, loving women too much to love just one; he ended his journey in a space emptied of all love, clinging to symbolic chimeras. Today’s children are open to everything; they listen to Eminem, Marilyn Manson, Dido, and Manu Chao. They can immerse themselves in any musical structure and slip into it skillfully. I think it would be interesting to project them into today’s world, at the intersection of rock, grunge, and opera, and show how mature, intelligent, lively, and detached the children of the third millennium are, but also how disillusioned they are with the socio-economic context. For this creation, I want a shift in: the music, halfway between contemporary rock and opera; the set, a bare stage resembling a loft filled with couches, motorcycles, and provocative graffiti; the choreography: sensitive and emotional compositions, incorporating all the ingredients of a choreographic work for adult dancers (sophisticated movements tending towards rhythmic extremes
-search for a relational and spatial fabric based on repeated improvisations, accentuation of a strange, crazy presence, maintained throughout the piece
- live performance of songs sung and played by the children themselves).
All these components will give rise to a modern and offbeat version of one of the most frightening tales in children’s literature.”

Josette Baïz – 2005

Source: Theater program – Maison de la Danse