PEAK Performances
Wiley Hausam | Director
Camille Spaccavento | Marketing and Media Director
Mike Steele | Company Manager
Patrick Flood @ Flood Design | Graphic Designer | Art Director
Blake Zidell Associates | Media Representative
Martin Halo | Percy Cole Media, Website Development
Abigail Pope | Marketing and Media Assistant
Taliyah Bethea | Marketing and Administrative Assistant
College of the Arts
Daniel Gurskis | Dean
Ronald L. Sharps | Associate Dean
Christine Lemesianou | Associate Dean
Linda D. Davidson | Assistant Dean
Zacrah S. Battle | College Administrator
Christopher Kaczmarek | Chairperson, Department of Art and Design
Anthony Mazzocchi | Director, John J. Cali School of Music
Keith Strudler | Director, School of Communication and Media
Randy Mugleston | Chairperson, Department of Theatre and Dance
Wiley Hausam | Director, Arts + Cultural Programming
Hillery Makatura | Director, Performance Operations
Patricia Piroh | Director, Broadcast and Media Operations
Megan C. Austin | Director, University Galleries
College of the Arts Performance Operations
Hillery Makatura | Director
Andrew Dickerson | Production Manager
Colin Van Horn | Technical Director
Kevin Johnson | Senior Production Engineer
Gene Lotito | CART Facilities Director
Laurel Brolly | Business Administrator
Jason Flamos | Lighting Supervisor
Emily Gocon, Nick Kanderis, Dan Mackle, Joey Messana, Justin Stuart, Cassandra Zeugin | Production Crew
Stephanie Benjamin Flores | Wardrobe Supervisor
Robert Hermida | Audience Services Director
William Collins, Maureen Grimaldi | House Managers
Jeff Lambert Wingfield | Box Office Manager
Yazeed Alomar, Jabob Batory, Reyna Cortes, Susanne Oyedeji, Eliezer Ramirez, Rajvir Sidhu | Box Office Leads
Susan R. Case | Program Copy Editor
Bart Solenthaler | Program Layout Design
Ombres Portées
Arts + Cultural Programming produces PEAK Performances, which presents dance, music, theater, opera, and circus performances in the Alexander Kasser Theater, on the campus of Montclair State University, for students and the general public.
PEAK Plus captures live performances, making them accessible worldwide and drastically expanding audiences for new work. Through the Creative Thinking course, artists are engaged to participate in groundbreaking research, illustrating for students of all fields of study that art and science are symbiotic. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are longstanding core values. PEAK provides the highest-quality production values so that audiences have an opportunity to engage with creative viewpoints that are bold, insightful, and fully realized. PEAK Performances is credited with 60 world premieres, 57 US premieres, and 69 commissions.
Programs in this season were made possible, in part, by the Alexander Kasser Theater Endowment Fund, PEAK Patrons, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
PEAK Performances gratefully acknowledges our student staff and volunteers.
March 23 I 24 I 25 I 26, 2023 Alexander Kasser Theater
Premiere Raphaëlle Boitel/Cie
US
L’Oublié(e)
2021/2022 SEASON
Photo by Christophe Raynaud de Lage
THE
@peakperfs
Wiley Hausam, Director, PEAK Performances
Daniel Gurskis, Dean, College of the Arts
US Premiere Raphaëlle Boitel/Cie L’Oublié(e)
Ombres Portées
Direction and Choreography Raphaëlle Boitel
Artistic Collaborator, Lighting, Set Design Tristan Baudoin
Original Music Arthur Bison
Machinery, Rigging, Apparatus, Safety Nicolas Lourdelle
Sound Design, Sound Manager Nicolas Gardel
Stage Manager David Normand
Direction of Production Julien Couzy
Production Jérémy Grandi
Business Administrator Nicolas Rosset
Set Building Opéra National de Bordeaux workshops
Performers Alba Faivre, Vassiliki Rossillion, Tia Balacey, Mohamed Rarhib, Nicolas Lourdelle, Alain Anglaret
Executive Production Cie L’Oublié(e) Raphaëlle Boitel
Performances of the compositions in the show can be found in music platforms: Deezer (www.deezer.com/fr/artist/181621327), Apple Music (music.apple.com/us/artist/arthur-bison/1636688335), Spotify (open.spotify.com/artist/5QMqrTcCGciWEvM2F0HXOv)
Coproduction: Agora PNC Boulazac Aquitaine; Tandem scène nationale Arras Douai; Théâtre de Bourg-en-Bresse – scène conventionnée; Le Grand T – théâtre de Loire Atlantique; Carré-Colonnes – scène nationale; La Plateforme 2 Pôles Cirque en Normandie/La Brèche à Cherbourg et le Cirque-Théâtre d’Elbeuf; Château Rouge – scène conventionnée d’Annemasse; Le Carré Magique, PNC en Bretagne, Lannion.
Creation Support: Opéra National de Bordeaux, Le Champ de Foire – St André de Cubzac, CRABB - Biscarosse, Centre National des Arts du Cirque – aide à l’insertion professionnelle, SPEDIDAM.
Cie L’Oublié(e)–Raphaëlle Boitel is subsidized by Ministère de la Culture DRAC – Nouvelle-Aquitaine; Region Nouvelle-Aquitaine; Dordogne department, and the city of Boulazac Isle-Manoire; in collaboration with Agora PNC Boulazac Aquitaine.
The tour of Ombres Portées has received the support of FACE Contemporary Theater, a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, with support from The Ford Foundation, Institut français, the French Ministry of Culture, and private donors.
Ombres Portées is part of Albertine Dance Season: A year-long celebration of the art of dance from inception to performance in 2023.
Duration: 70 minutes, no intermission
In consideration of both audiences and performers, please turn off all electronic devices. The taking of photographs or videos and the use of recording equipment are not permitted. No food or drink is permitted in the theater.
About the Company
Director and choreograph Raphaëlle Boitel created Cie l’Oublié(e) in 2012. It is rooted in circus arts but includes elements of theater, dance, visual arts, and cinema.
The company has created a unique language that combines physical theater, choreography, and acrobatics based on the connection between performers and mental or instinctive processes. The company’s language is also highly visual and inspired by visual arts and cinema.
The company’s work tackles recurring themes such as solidarity, perseverance, animality, human relationships, engagement, moments of grace, letting go, challenging oneself.
The shows make the most of the three dimensions of space: performers inhabit the floor and the air. Each project is an opportunity to combine new artforms, create new circus apparatus or combine different acrobatic skills.
www.cieloubliee.com
Program Notes
“When I was little, I would often have the same dream.
... There were even trees, and you could ask them anything you wanted.
... As long as you promised you’d keep it a secret.”
K is an energetic but wounded young woman. One day, she decides to talk to her father so she can finally move on with her life. But he doesn’t want to break his long silence. She will have to get other family members involved.
But things won’t turn out exactly how she planned it...
With this show, I wanted to talk about what is left unsaid. Secrets are like ghosts hiding in the shadows of ourselves and our families. They infiltrate our psyche, influence our relationships and our life journey.
Even though physicality and choreography are an important part of this piece, I also wanted to include cinema-like elements: there are strong characters, dramaturgy, suspense, and an ending...
Ombres Portées is like a Russian doll, a Kafkian poem about one’s quest for identity, where one’s sense of self comes from, destinies that suddenly change their course, and the fragility of our sense of balance. The piece also deals with guilt and its collateral damages. A potent mix of dance, circus and cinema, Ombres Portées is a journey into one’s most intimate thoughts. It highlights the danger of lying to ourselves.
Three sisters, an adopted brother, a husband, the father. I chose to write a story about family. Traditionally and culturally, family represents the ultimate cocoon where we seek protection from a very young age... How deep are our wounds if this cocoon is also where we find trauma? K and the other characters embody multiple versions of silence and the different ways we find to lie to ourselves.
We were inspired by the colors or the endings of movies Requiem for a Dream, Brazil, Festen, Parasites, and the work of directors like David Lynch, Fritz Lang, and Hitchcock. We are using text to further cement the company’s storytelling identity and bridge the gap between the different art forms. Here, all the performers are circus artists but also actors, dancers, and acrobats.
Full program with all artists biographies to be found at
—Raphaëlle Boitel
Program Notes (continued)
The Shadow: A negative alter-ego: the symbols associated with shadows are numerous and have been shared for centuries between most cultures. It represents what is hidden or unexplored, the mysterious, what we believe is erased or forgotten.
It is also an oneiric version of ourselves, made of our most hidden traits and what consciousness has hidden away.
But what if exploring shadows would allow us to find the light... ?
Above all, by exploring traumas, Ombres Portées shines a new light on courage.
I wanted to dive deeper in the exploration of our hidden selves and highlight the beauty of those who are fighting to exist. I wrote the story as a combination of drama and comedy. I don’t want to immerse the audience in the darkness of traumas but rather depict different sides of the human nature: complex, funny, and ultimately moving. Opposing the darkness of the themes we are exploring, the story includes segments of humor that highlight the emotional impact of the piece.
Spaces, light, original music, the circus equipment, appearing/disappearing effects, archetypal characters, and sound effects in the auditorium are all infused with a double meaning. They intensify the metaphorical aspect of the show and the subliminal effects of each scene. The set symbolizes closed spaces or walls to escape from. It is inspired by drawings by Schuiten, the masters of chiaroscuro, and Bauhaus and is based on the idea of total fusion of set and light. Each of these elements transforms into something else depending on the other’s movements.
Light is an art installation in itself, like a sculpture of darkness. We imagined it as a narrator whose tone changes depending on the scene, and which carries as much emotion as the other characters.
I wanted Ombres Portées to be a complete theater experience. A dream where physical performance, theater, dance, cinema, laughter, and cries are combined. They combine to tell a powerful story in a highly visual universe, carried out by endearing characters.
I hope the story of K, the young woman who wants to escape silence, will resonate with each audience member as much as it resonates with the performers. Her story is the story of many women. Our role is to prompt them to speak out.
—Raphaëlle Boitel
About the Artists
Raphaëlle Boitel (Director and Choreographer), born in 1984, started acting at the age of six. Spotted by Annie Fratellini, she joined the Ecole Nationale des Arts du Cirque Fratellini in 1992. From 1998 to 2010, she worked with James Thierrée and performed most notably in La Symphonie du Hanneton and La Veillée des Abysses. In addition to working with Thierrée, she performed in theater plays, films, television films (in films directed by Marc Lainé, Lisa Guédy, Graham Eatough, Luc Meyer, Colline Serreau, Jean-Paul Scarpita...), participated in events (Jean-François Zygel), appeared in music videos, and performed in various cabarets in New York, Miami, London... In 2012, she performed in Géométrie de Caoutchouc by Aurélien Bory and also founded her own company and started working on her first show. In 2013, she directed her first piece, Consolations, with three performers who graduated from the Fratellini Academy. She also choreographed the opera Macbeth directed by Gorgio Barberio Corsetti, at La Scala in Milan. In 2014, she created L’Oublié(e), a large-scale piece of “circus theater,” and in 2015, Fierce 5, a tribute to the circus. Shortly after, she choreographed the opera La Belle Hélène directed by Gorgio Barberio Corsetti and Pierrick Sorin for Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. In 2017, she wrote and performed a short-form solo La Bête Noire, a metaphor for her past as a contortionist. That year, she also choreographed Alcione, a Baroque opera directed by Louise Moaty and Jordi Savall for L’Opéra Comique. In 2018, she created When Angels Fall, a large-scale theater piece. In 2019, Opera National de Bordeaux commissioned Boitel for an outdoor piece, Horizon, to coincide with the cultural season Liberté! Bordeaux 2019. In 2020, she created Un Contre Un, a family show. In May 2020, Alcione should have been presented at the Liceu Opera in Barcelona. In December 2020, Boitel directed Le Cycle de L’Absurde, the graduation piece of the 32nd CNAC (Centre National des Arts du Cirque) promotion. In November 2021, she created Ombres Portées.
Tristan Baudoin (Artistic Collaborator, Lighting, Set Design) grew up in an artistic family. He is passionate about visual arts and at the age of 17 he started working as a stage technician. He trained as a lighting and stage technician and started working on various projects: stage productions, TV, events. In 1998, he focused his effort on theater, music, and dance and started working with artists based in the Toulouse area in France. In 2004, he met with Aurélien Bory and joined Cie 111 as technical director, a position he held for more than 10 years. At Cie 111, he mastered new skills: scenography, machinery, flights, robotics (Baudouin was the behind the robot in Sans Objet ). In 2011, he met with Raphaëlle Boitel and decided to work with her on her own creations. He collaborates with her in the conception, the scenography, the lighting, and the technical aspects of all her artistic projects.
Arthur Bison (Original Music) began working at 19 as a studio assistant for Dan Levy, a film and dance music composer and founding member of The Do. Between 2006 and 2013, he collaborated on the recording of the film Darling and the award-winning albums A Mouthful and Both Ways Open Jaws. He went on tour with the band as technician and stage manager. In 2008, and in parallel to his work with The Do, he began collaborating with choreographer Johanna Levy, composing, and recording music for her pieces Hotel Mind (2008), After (2014), and Twist (2016). He met Raphaëlle Boitel in 2011 and has since written and recorded the music for her shows The Forgotten (2014), Fierce 5 (2015), When Angels Fall (2018), The Black Beast (2019), and One versus One (2020).
We respectfully acknowledge that Montclair State University occupies land in Lenapehoking, the traditional and expropriated territory of the Lenape. As a state institution, we recognize and support the sovereignty of New Jersey’s three state-recognized tribes: the Ramapough Lenape, Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape, and Powhatan Renape nations. We recognize the sovereign nations of the Lenape diaspora elsewhere in North America, as well as other Indigenous individuals and communities now residing in New Jersey. By offering this land acknowledgement, we commit to addressing the historical legacies of Indigenous dispossession and dismantling practices of erasure that persist today. We recognize the resilience and persistence of contemporary Indigenous communities and their role in educating all of us about justice, equity, and the stewardship of the land throughout the generations.
