An aesthetically and politically provocative show, with prodigious manipulation, hilarious, poetic and daring, which is an ode to freedom and love, and is one of the great highlights of FIMFA Lx24. Johanny Bert’s new creation takes a sensitive and humorous look at the plurality of our sexual and loving practices, drawing inspiration from the play The Round, by Arthur Schnitzler, censored in 1897 for its approach to erotic relationships. Yann Verburgh completely rewrote the work, based on the original structure: intertwined stories of intimate encounters.
The hyper-realistic puppets are manipulated on sight by a team of young actors, who end up becoming a single living entity with their latex puppets. The diversity of bodies aims to reflect the plurality of beings and lives, brought together in this mosaic of powerful and moving stories. The choral and cinematic staging allows us to move from one encounter to the next, revealing what unites us in our differences: love, quite simply.
After the success of HEN, in which Johanny Bert captivated the audience with his furious and virile puppet diva, in a show in the style of a 1930s Berlin cabaret, fused with the queer scene (and presented at FIMFA Lx22), it is not surprising that he has now been inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s censored play, and takes lovers on a joyful and sensual contemporary tour. Johanny Bert continues to explore sexual identities in a series of romantic encounters that leave the field open to all possibilities: bisexuality, polyamory, asexuality, transgender love… In this waltz of love, couples make and break each other between characters in this La (Nouvelle) Ronde of different ages, women, men or non-binary.
BIO
Johanny Bert is an actor, puppeteer and director. Throughout his artistic career he developed a unique theatrical language: the confrontation between the actor, the object and the puppet form. Each creation is a new research, based on contemporary texts (commissions, unpublished texts or repertoire texts) or from a plastic universe built as a team on stage. He enjoys working with performers from different disciplines (actors, dancers, singers, musicians, etc.). Certain dramaturgies guide him towards a dialogue between the human and the inanimate, as in the arts of puppetry, but he does not want to be limited to one category: theater for young people, visual theater, puppet theater… and he creates by intuition, with a form of insolent freedom, guided by a goal.
Among his most recent productions are La (Nouvelle) Ronde, premiered at the Théâtre de la Ville, HEN (2019), presented at FIMFA Lx22, Le Petit Bain (2017) at the Théâtre Nouvelle Génération – CDN de Lyon and Dévaste-Moi (2017) with Emmanuelle Laborit in co-production with IVT – International Visual Theatre. In October 2019, he staged Les Sea Girls au pouvoir, a unique feminist musical show. In 2020, he created Frissons for the Théâtre Sartrouville Yvelines CDN/Festival Odyssées en Yvelines, a new text by Magali Mougel, then directed La Princesse qui n’aimait pas… for actress Caroline Guyot (Barbarque Cie). Johanny Bert was an associate artist of Le Bateau Feu – Scène Nationale Dunquerque, between 2018 and 2021. In October 2020, he created Une Épopée contemporary for young audiences. He received a commission from SACD and the Festival d’Avignon in the Vive le Subject program in 2020. He created Le Process for teenagers, with text by Catherine Verlaguet. In December 2023 he directed his first opera at the ONR Opéra National de Rhin, at the invitation of Alain Perroux, and staged The Magic Flute. In February, the first phase of Fucking Eternity – Oratorio débridé pour un Ange premiered, and the second phase of this project is being prepared for October 2024.
