the artistic project
The language we strive to use to express ourselves through our pieces is a form of physical and visual thinking through images and metaphors. By evoking danger and peril, we are able to talk about the fallibility of life without seeming to do so.
Variety We approach our pieces through the prism of physical theater, circus, and music hall, then we move outside this framework to confront the issues of today's world. We like circus because, as Tod Browning said, it allowed what was scattered to come together. We are ambiguous beings, and it is in this ambiguity that we can thrive. Our excursions into other artistic disciplines allow us to recognize freedom in this variety.
Temporality We speak a language where time is counted and counted down before everything disappears. This framework for writing gives meaning to existence.
Emotional aim We use surprise as a diversionary effect. For a moment, the unexpected opens a direct path to unconscious emotions at the very point where phenomena begin. It distracts us from the essential in order to bring us face to face with it. The surprise effect is a martial art technique that targets the heart.
Performative Piece Our pieces are not really defined by a particular discipline, but manifest themselves in what is alive. We do not know what a body is capable of, and no one will ever know unless they try to push themselves to the limit.
Tsirihaka and Vimala
☟{for info & touring}
Mathieu Hilléreau - Les Indépendances
+33 (0)1 43 38 23 71
on tour
CRUEL TROP TARD
Performance by Tsirihaka Harrivel
Bi-frontal stage - duration 35 min
Cruel Trop Tard (Cruel Too Late) is a formal experiment in which a space is transformed into a shooting range—a stage pierced by arrows. It embodies the expression of a sudden idea that shoots forth from 0 to 250 km/h in a quarter of a second, cleaving the air—a devastating idea, obviously. It evokes the proximity of danger, with people choosing to organize and live there, like a village at the foot of a volcano. It's stereovision, with someone shooting on one side and someone being targeted on the other. It's the smoky answer to the foggy question: what am I aiming at?
Cruel Trop Tard is the result of a research residency at Villa Kujoyama and an in situ laboratory residency at Ménagerie de Verre. It is also the prelude to an upcoming show, TELA MISSILIA ARMA, scheduled for release in 2027.
The performance space is transformed into a shooting range along its entire length, inspired by the architecture of the iconic OFF room at the Ménagerie de Verre. With a low ceiling and a length of 30 meters, it is the ideal size for this type of performance. The audience is divided into two groups on either side of the shooting range. The creation is based on archery in a form associated with Kyūdō.
PREMIERE
March 6–8, 2025 Festival Les Inaccoutumés - La Ménagerie de Verre, Paris
NEXT PERFORMANCE
April 1–4, 2026 Festival Séquence Danse - Centquatre-Paris
6 people + set on tour
YOU
Experiential installation by Tsirihaka Harrivel
Is this a variation on the cult arcade game Pong (although here it is the walls which move, not just a ball)? A variation on a game of skill (only here it’s the voice which bounces back)? A funhouse mirror from a fairy tale (catoptromancy, or divining with a mirror)? Or is it just a reflection of the self? In any case, You multiplies the voice effect and gives it the absolute power to change space. Using a mirror, the visitor discovers facets of his/ her own voice or scream.
You, a piece imagined by the transdisciplinary artist Tsirihaka Harrivel, is the prologue to his upcoming project Arcade | Sentimental. A contemporary variation on the theme of the French traditional game of massacre (a form of release which allows you to vent your anger on whatever image which triggered it), Arcade | Sentimental projects us into oddly playful declensions of truly liberating experiences. As frightening as they may be joyful, these alterations in the coordinates of what is possible lead to pleasing experiences dealing with our own power to act, to move.
The structure, its innate promise of amusement belying that which allows it to reverse/ upset values and principles over the short time frame of a game, makes You a fun revisting of arcade and simulation games as well as those we may play at the fair. The sound and musical effects, the choice of colors and unsuspecting interactivity spill into this dramatization through action. You is about experience as well as observation: the visitor is both actor and spectator.
The continuation of the Arcade | Sentimental project will take place in a rather labyrinthian journey, in Extended Reality (XR), under the influence, where the technological fantasy of a better world and the similar fantasy of getting our most cherished wishes to happen -- meet. In a journey interrupted by traps and mines and strange events, the audience is constantly bumping into reality. The space adds a fictional dimension to the physical experiences offered: the body becomes the lever in fine for the proposed problem, with action as the only real option.
You premiered on December 17, 2022 at the CENTQUATRE-PARIS, under the auspices of the Foire Foraine of Contemporary Art. The premiere of Arcade | Sentimental is planned for 2026.
length 6 x 1.5 x height 2.,5 meters
for one visitor
