“Come, take the risk of sharing an hour with us… we are going to tell you a story,” warns Estelle Guihard, as she talks about her experience of being part of a French dance-drama production, The Seed Giver .
The play Estelle has directed will be showcased in the city on March 18, and presents the unusual story adapted from a 19th century real-life account from France. In 1852, a village in the Basses-Alpes Region of France was deprived of men by the repression that followed the Republican uprising against the coup d'état of Napoleon III. Two years went by in complete isolation for the women of the village. They took a vow that if a man came, he would be their common husband, so that life could continue. The women had thought of and planned out everything, except the possibility of falling in love. This story is the disturbing real-life account of one of the women, Violette Ailhaud (1835-1925).
What Estelle likes the most about the story, ‘L'Homme Semence' in French, is its simplicity and truth. “It is a story of an 84-year-old woman who has nothing more to hide about the experience she lived through. In fact, Violette is writing it down for her grand-daughter to read 30 years after her death. It is a fabulous inter-generational story,” says Estelle.
For those of us wondering if this story is still relevant these days, Estelle explains that what is most touching is this is more a retelling of the feminine experience outside constraints of time, and less a historical account.
Bridging two cultures
The Seed Giver fell into place when two French artistes living in India over several years - Anne Bressanges and Nancy Boissel Cormier – met. The crew expanded with Props Manager Marie de la Bellière, and Souri Rajan, musician joining them. Since the artistes have been living and working in India for many years and learning Bharatanatyam, they deliberately use references and movements borrowed from Indian classical dance so as to bring together the two cultures, French and Indian.
Estelle who worked with the two artistes on this collaboration during a residency at the Alliance Francaise de Madras, considers Anne Bressanges and Nancy Boissel as her primary tools to present this story. Strengthening their presence is the attention paid to “the other, the space, the movements of the body and the sounds in space,” she explains.
Considering theatre as a space, which allows for meetings, Estelle describes this experience as one where the alphabet and vocabulary of choice were music, dance and the text. “Music talks to everybody; dance takes us towards the human experience; the text resounds as a simple language – a simple and poetic French.” The English sub-titles ensure that the audience follows the canvas of the story.
Having lived in Auroville near Pondicherry for several years now, Estelle comfortably uses terms from the South Indian classical music and ancient Tamil literature to describe the production. “The text is the sruti, the point of anchor of this piece. The music reveals the emotional and poetic intensity in the portrayal of both Agam (the interior emotional moments which surpass the exterior) and Puram (the exterior history which these women are part of).”
Working for the first time on such a production in India, Estelle considers herself as a small vehicle that transmits a story about extraordinary women from her country of origin to her adopted country.
Organised by Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum in association with the French Embassy, The Seed Giver will come to the city on March 18, at 6 p.m., at the Vyloppilly Samskriti Bhavan.
