BLANCHE NEIGE, Scopitone & Cie (France)

Once upon a time there was a Snow White with a lot of Rock’n’roll or a theater of shoes for all feet. Sneakers, High Heels, Ballerinas or Moccasins… the important thing is to find the right shoe for your foot. Snow White knows this, but her stepmother, the Queen, would rather see her in a box than in her mirror. Therefore, she uses every possible trick to stay in power. But the use of too much polish to shine, leads to a quick fall from the pedestal or, as the Portuguese proverb says, there is no beautiful shoe that does not turn into an ugly slipper…
Scopitone like to use the tales of our childhood to turn them into retrokitch moments, absolutely hilarious. Blanche Neige uses the codes that made her trademark: a vinyl audiobook that tells the original tale and the playback associated with an eccentric, delirious and spicy interpretation, which makes fun of the clichés and stereotypes that are very present in traditional tales. A device or castelet created in a vintage aesthetic and another way of telling the story, through the manipulation of objects. In this case, the various characters are inspired by the world of shoes…

“Scopitone used their blistering humor and dizzying inventiveness to the great delight of viewers of all ages (…). We want more!
Blanche Neige takes a cute, rather sickening story, full of sexist clichés, and turns it into a crazy spectacle (…).
The actor-manipulator, Juan Pino, deserves a special mention for his character as a very rock shoemaker, but very classy, ​​elegant, impeccably coiffed and, above all, capable of the most incredible grimaces and the most hilarious exaggerations (…) .
In short, be it one or another of his shows, you can go with your eyes closed, regardless of who accompanies you (…).” – Mathieu Dochtermann, Tout la Culture

BOXED, Ariel Doron (Israel/Germany)

What is that? Is it me? Will it be a you? Is this real? Or just a Joke? It’s time to open the Box!
Close it, please. I’m scared.

Renowned puppeteer Ariel Doron’s long-awaited new one-man show, Boxed, takes minimalism one step further, and creates an astonishing story with just a shoebox. Boxed deftly plays with a fundamental question in puppetry: Who’s really in charge? The puppet or the manipulator? Ariel Doron has created an emotional show full of bizarre gore and humor, about a lonely man trying to connect with himself and the world.

“But what a story! Without any words, it is a theater of gestures, only visual (…). Behind an extraordinary amount of madness, the show is constructed with great care (…). A very beautiful, unexpected and even refreshing proposal. In short: a spectacle to discover!” -Marthieu Dochtermann, Toute la Culture

“A great specialist in the theater of objects (…). Amusing and humorous at first, in an almost naive and frankly clownish register, the device soon proves to be disturbing. The puppet, as we know, can turn against its handler. Ariel Doron revisits the ‘possession’ genre, with devastating humor and gore, rich in minimalism, with hilarious inventiveness. Rigorously delusional.” -Marie Baudet, La Libre

BIOS

Cédric Hingouët is inspired by the vintage universe of the 50s and 60s and by classic tales. A child of the time of the Fraggle Rock and Téléchat series, fan of Jacques Tati, as well as of the universe of Quentin Tarantino, this inventor DJ, lover of music, photography and painting, likes to unearth nuggets recorded on vinyl records or LP’s (stories , sound effects, unreleased tracks, etc.) and mix them to create stories that he adapts to object and puppet theater. Cédric collaborated with several companies, such as the Bob Théâtre or the Bouffou Théâtre, as a light designer and as an actor. Artistic director of Scopitone & Cie, which he founded in 2002 with Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, he later created the Kamikaze? in 2005, ZePatrècathodics in 2006, Formule 1 in 2008, MOB in 2010, Juliette+Roméo=AESD in 2013, Divina and Cendrillon in 2017, Blanche Neige in 2018, and recently, Hand Hop and Suzanne aux Oiseaux. The company affirms its desire to work in a different relationship with the public, favoring proximity to spectators of all ages, with shows in caravans, tales in castelets, scenic forms, puppet dances and table puppets and of course they like to take advantage of the digressions to look for the most kitsch object in anticipation of a next creation! Scopitone was a jukebox that combined image and sound, very common in the 60s. The company with the same name turned it into an intelligent device for revisiting stories with everyday objects.

Ariel Doron is a puppeteer, director and performer. In his artistic work, he uses little or no text and a lot of humor, recurrently addressing difficult social and political issues. Each project is created with the hope of expanding and questioning the means used, whether puppets or not, and with the desire to inspire the public to feel, think and react. His solo shows such as Boxed, Plastic Heroes and Pinhas have been performed at festivals and theaters in over 30 countries around the world. Ariel currently lives in Germany and has collaborated or staged shows for several institutions, such as the Schauburg Theater München, Theater Junge Generation Dresden, Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, The Elbphilharmonie or the Hamburg Opera, among others. Ariel is also a teacher and has been invited to give training at various institutions, such as Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, UQAM Université de Québec Montréal, Central School of Speech & Drama, London, among others. Ariel also works with puppets for film or television (he is Elmo, in the Israeli version of Sesame Street). He studied puppet theater at the School of Visual Theater in Jerusalem and cinema at the University of Tel Aviv, in addition to participating in several workshops at the Institut International de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières, France. At FIMFA Lx18 we could see his creativity in the Plastic Heroes show and he directed an online workshop on the Funicular Project during FIMFA Lx21.