The company La Boîte à sel (Céline Garnavault / Thomas Sillard) has launched two new projects, one of which is aimed at everyone from the age of three.
In a few months, in October, the company La Boîte à sel will celebrate its twentieth anniversary. Already. For two years now, its show Block has been touring almost all the stages of France. Aimed at all audiences from the age of three, it can be considered one of the great successes of recent seasons. Following the lockdown, the team was able to return to the stages and work on its future projects. The blocks designed by Thomas Sillard continue to intrigue audiences, not just the little ones, as the company is working on a distant project of “bads blocks,” which its designer and director Céline Garnavault defines as a “blockbuster of connected sound objects.”
It would be aimed at adults, or at least at a teenage-adult audience (from the age of 14/15). Bad block will draw its inspiration from cinema and genre films. “We will play freely with the references, have fun scaring ourselves, while being very connected to the audience... And continue to work on sound, go further into immersion, movement, spatialization, synchronization, explore and invent with the multiple possibilities that these blocks offer us, but this time in a more sex, drug and rock n’roll atmosphere,” she smiles. The project is distant and is expected to see the light of day in 2022, but in the immediate term, the team is working on a completely different adventure, aimed at young audiences this time.
Small trains and human beat box "Track" will be “a theater of connected objects combining blocks, small trains, and a human beatbox musician, Laurent Duprat, alias L.O.S.” The creation is projected for the end of 2021. Like Block, the project will be accessible to everyone from the age of 3. Céline Garnavault and her team will work on the idea of travel, with the live performer creating evocative and changing soundscapes. The director mentions “the immobile journey, driven by the imagination, with the voice as the engine, and the movement – circular, almost hypnotic – that would make us tilt towards dreaming.”
An innovation will preside over the realization of this new project. If on Block, the sounds emitted were previously recorded, on Track, the technology will be pushed a little further. Created live by L.O.S., a musician but also an actor in the show, the sounds will be mixed and broadcast instantaneously. “A system of connected sound modules will allow the multi-broadcasting of sounds played and sung live, but also thought for a sound writing in movement, on stages pulled by small locomotives,” explains Céline Garnavault.
To mount the production of her project, she is accompanied by the Bureau Hectores (Lorinne Florange / Sophie Jardin / Grégoire Le Divelec). A first research lab was conducted in January at the Carré Colonnes - national scene Bordeaux Métropole, and the working sessions resumed in May. To date, the company La Boîte à sel is still looking for partners who will allow it to finalize its budget and approach this new year of research on stage with peace of mind.
