Les processus de la mise en scène : polyphonie et complexité dans la création scénique
A complex human reality, based on dialogues as well as power relations which are permanently being redefined, is at the heart of the process of performance creation. So as to theorize such processes, several studies have been building a corpus compiling the documents which are produced during meetings or rehearsals. However, such a transfer has proven questionable : as it is made of incomplete traces, such material is necessarily too incomplete to bespeak of the organic and polyphonic life of a performance in gestation. A first solution is to elect a decidedly intermedial approach of a performance’s archives : since various artistic disciplines interact in the process of a performance’s production, one may analyze it by actively comparing and contrasting the different media which are generated during its elaboration. As a complement to the first proposal, a second approach will lead the researcher to get involved into an in vivo observation of meetings and rehearsals so as to have at his disposal a more comprehensive research material. This epistemological clarification paves the way for an attempt to theorize the processes of stage creation. First, it appears that the stage or work space is as much of a physical receptacle for the artists’ research as it is a catalyst : it is in the course of getting to own this space collectively that a group of collaborators gives substance to the production. The creative space thus reveals a polyphonic dimension which is also true regarding time : since it involves an ensemble of artists, a creative process has no uniform chronological linearity ; it comprises a whole array of relations to time which are specific to each of the participants, and one has to bring these temporalities together to give birth to a performance that belongs to all. There is therefore a fundamentally social dimension to any staging process. As it is gathered in a given space and time, the small society which is formed around the stage director has to follow a creative process based on dialogue, where the suggestions of the different individuals coalesce to produce a prolific discourse whose strength and unity are guaranteed by the presence of the director.
dialogisme process genetics performance rehearsals genesis polyphony dialogism