Silence !

Outdoor - Nightime
Duration : 45 min
Audience : several thousand people

** Technical rider to download 

SILENCE ! 

This is the silence before the storm.

Who can explain this obscured horizon? Someone shouts Silence ! Time is suspended now, all is frozen. The slow muffled rolling of the drums rises from the depths becoming a deafening noise. A rain of metal fills the air, sheet lightning overwhelms the sky.

Musician/pyrotechnician artists of Les Commandos Percu invent a storm of sounds and fire that resonates deep inside.“Music is distorted silence”. In between two notes silence releases its strength.
What is going to happen ? What is coming next ? Les Commandos Percu’s new show Silence ! questions our relationship to time and our use of it. It questions the future : what will we do when there is nothing left? As Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention wrote : “Necessity is the mother of invention”. 

« How to create when the world collapses around us and there is nothing left ? How can ingenuity be an answer to coercion? Our challenge is not to turn Les Commandos Percu into the first post-apocalyptic band of percussion but to go back to our basics : observing, recycling material and the sounds of the world to reinvent a lively and personified music.

Then comes a reaction to the abundance of technology surrounding us and making us wonder what is the meaning of performing a live show with flesh and sweat? We always look for answers in fire because it is deeply linked to human beings history. Until now we had the feeling that our shows were asking “which side of fire are you on ?”. Today we are asking “where is fire going to?”.

What we are looking for is an exhilarating wildness, a genuine and essential joy. »

Raymond Gabriel – artistic director

References : Tête à Tête - Rastatt DE / Le Grand Festival - Verdun FR / Imaginarius - Santa Maria da Feira PT / IN Chalon dans la Rue - Chalon sur Saône FR / Fira Tàrrega ES / Fête du Jardin Michelet​ - Toulouse FR / Fiestas del Pilar​ - Zaragoza ES / Les Contre-Plongées - Clermont Ferrand FR / Fête de la St Paul - Sarreguemines FR / Fête des artistes de Chassepierre BE / Fête nationale - Tourcoing FR / Fest’arts​ - Libourne FR / Cirk ! - Aalst BE / Championnat de France de Kayak - L'Argentière la Bessée FR…croquis-1_blancsansfond

Cast :

  • Artistic director : Raymond Gabriel
  • Music – pyrotechnics : Stéphane Augier, Metty Bénistant, Laurent Macaux, William Perez,
  • Lights : Etienne Pinochet
  • Sound : Laurent Boulhabel
  • Production manager : Vincent Gonzalez
  • Producer : Lisa Trouilhet, Audrey Itier
     

Silence ! is a co-production Big Drum & Festival International des Arts de la Rue de Chassepierre.

Supported by Théâtre Le Liburnia - Ville de Libourne, Le Rio Grande - Scène de Musiques Actuelles de Montauban, la Communauté de Communes des Côteaux Bellevue, la Ville de Toulouse, la Région Midi-Pyrénées, le Département de la Haute-Garonne et Rythmes et Sons - Strasbourg.