Giant puppets strutted the Promenade beach front in a show that fused spectacle, street theatre, performance art and music to mark the commencement of the 2022 edition of the French Rendez-Vous Festival.
Hosted as part of the Bonjour India festival by various French diplomatic missions and cultural agencies, the fourth edition of the festival also signified a return to the public square after the disruption caused by COVID-19 and a concurrence with the 75th anniversary of Indian Independence and Indo-French diplomatic relations.
A group of eight artistes, four of them in larger-than-life puppet gear, from Les Grandes Personnes from Aubervilliers in France, presented their deambulatory show ‘A Twist of Fate’.
It was a signature performance by Les Grandes Personnes, a performance company famed for its magnified, larger-than-life form of puppetry featuring gigantic sculptures in a fusion of visual art and theatrical expression.
The part-parade, part-storytelling show portrayed a weird family comprising a young boy Chinaa and a little girl Meenu, who sometimes resembles a tigress, and their parents, the handsome Karna and a phantom-like Kanchana. Thrown into the mix is a parakeet drawing tarot cards that will change the family’s fate.
“The show is about rejection, jealousy, emancipation and acceptance”, said a spokesperson for the troupe.
The eye-popping act fired up the crowds even more when the giant figures swayed to the music of the local instrumental band that belted out songs such as ‘Raja Raja Chozhan Njan...’ and ‘Vaa Vennila...’
“Everywhere we perform we have made it a point to collaborate with local artistes,” a member of the troupe said.
The Alliance Francaise Pondicherry, a co-host, had roped in the local band and the troupe had a brief discussion about their show, listened to the samples of their repertoire and decided on which song to place at which plot point in the story. From the way they matched the rhythm, one would have thought that the troupe had grown up listening to Ilaiyaraaja classics.
The motto of a Les Grandes Personnes performance is to communicate a visual language accessible to all, forge new relationships between the audience and the show and invent new ways of making sculpture dance in the streets.
Incidentally, the giant structures that were featured in ‘A Twist of Fate’ were constructed during a residency in Puducherry in March 2020 with the theatre students from Pondicherry University and pupils from Calvé College here.
The Consulate-General of France in Puducherry and Chennai is hosting the French Rendez-Vous Festival in Puducherry, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram from April 3 to 9. Collaborators include the French Institute in India and the Alliances Française chapters in Puducherry, Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram. The fete is also supported by the Government of Puducherry, the Government of Tamil Nadu, and a host of Indo-French companies.
The eclectic festival includes 12 free-entry shows, comprising music, theatre, modern circus and puppet shows, some a collaborative work with Indian artistes, highlighting the cultural cooperation between the two countries, the Consulate said.
