Two actors sitting at a table telling tales with two small puppets and other fantastic accessories. A perfect and beautiful couple suddenly experience change, and then, change again, portraying in their convolutions a social tragicomedy.

A success!

At the beginning: a couple drifting in the ocean, in an old small boat: prevailing winds blow, the couple bounces and so does the boat.

Bearing is uncertain.

Their poverty is total. They lost everything, their home, "a beautiful house in a residential area", the car bought on credit, the French garden "with so marvellous roses": the bank took it all.

They believe only Jesus may come to their aid, and bring their "colour TV" back.

They beg him in a desolate gospel song and eventually they run aground, in a piece of land.

Virgin land?

Is there anything we can do, or build, or grab?

In their dreams, at night, Columbus caravels sail by, to the tune of great conquest…

Object Theatre

By AGNÈS LIMBOS

The object theatre, the signature of Agnès Limbos shows. A particular kind of theatre where the object is handled in full view and where the actor is at the centre of the space. When we refer to "object", we mean objects that are part of our everyday life with its nostalgic or imagined status. The visual impact is instantaneous. These are "elements" just as they are, they suffer no transformation and get to the stage through the handler's choice or only by chance. A theatre genre without wings, using the metaphor, the symbolism, the suggestion, choosing to walk sideways. The object theatre makes it possible to tell tales, to rapidly change locations, dimensions, scale (quick interchange from big to the small or from small to big), views and perspectives. A small boat, a porcelain dog figure, a seagull, caravels, a small house, a palm tree, a small African puppet… Manipulation is a fastidious precision work, and a mandatory road: to achieve true manipulation and not agitation. Without this proficiency, we will not be able to tell the tale. We use the same requests for text with punctuation, silences or the choreography of objects where each gesture and move has a meaning. Viewpoints from below or above the objects will provide onlookers with different interpretations. We are just like film directors deciding where to place the camera, for a close up or a wide shot.

The music

by GREGORY HOUBEN

Gregory Houben, jazz trumpet player, composer and comedian suggests a series of musical moments that raise and supplement the play: chants accompanied by a Magnus organ (sort of Armée du Salut), a soloist trumpet or by a drum. He follows the proposed themes, going from Gospel songs, reflecting their hopes, to lyricism, the narrative chant, reflecting their perdition, to delirium. All compositions are original. The first time I went to the theatre, I saw Petrouchka by compagnie Gare Centrale with Agnès Limbos. I must say I was privileged, my mother was the organizer of shows for young audiences in Verviers! Attending it once was not enough for me, I was so fascinated that I asked mum to take me again and again. This happened with the following shows and till I was old enough to go by myself. This experience prompted me to join the drama course at the Conservatoire de Verviers when I was 14, where unfortunately I had to learn the difference between object theatre and a Caligula or a Shakespeare… Undeniably, after attending many theatre plays, Agnès Limbos will be my reference and my preference… my Proust's Madeleine. I was very moved when, in 2006, Agnès asked me to play the music of our new creation Ô and later for the following Troubles. In these shows, we play a Casio synthesiser, trumpet and we sing great standards like La Carioca, Blue Room and also Que reste-t-il de nos amours… Choices we have made together and that can brilliantly illustrate the world of this couple married in New York. For this new creation, I wanted to be able to create music perfectly fitting the show. I prepared a few musical environments in advance but as the writing of the show frequently emerges of improvisation, I was able to act in response and to suggest music on the spot. I improvise a melody or an accompaniment and I may then refine and enrich it till it perfectly fits what we want at that moment. The instrumentation is simple: a trumpet and two Magnus organs. These are electric organs that sound like a harmonium. Like the accordions, these organs have, on the left side, a set of chords that make them easier to play. So, it is possible for me and Agnès to accompany a melody with one hand while the other plays the trumpet or manipulates an object. The sound that come out these instrument is so special that I have to compose the music on them. When you plug these machines, the motor turns and sends de air through the reeds, and this makes an incredible racket. By pressing the keyboard keys, you are transported into a strange universe, which sweeps your imagination from top to bottom. Therefore, it is not difficult to find inspiration, you just have to let yourself go, guided by these plastic organs with cheap sonorities but extremely narrative. The repertoire for organ is vast. We know it in sacred music, solo LA MUSIQUE or as accompaniment instrument. I remember I attended a show by the choir of the church Saint-Thomas de Leipzig, when I was touring with Agnès. Albenoni writes, in the 17th century, a marvellous concert for trumpet and organ. It also shows up in the American black music (gospel choirs) and later it will appear on jazz, through its portable version (Hammond organs). As a composer, this instrument (even if much smaller and made of plastic) offers a lot "creation hints" and allows me to touch different and powerful imaginaries. The trumpet being both classic and a jazz instrument allows me to navigate these different repertoires and to best serve the purpose. A beautiful adventure on sight.

The set design

As in Trouble, a simple set design, enabling the objects manipulation, a space for the actors to play: A square table, a small reproduction of a theatre's stage. That is where objects will be manipulated and where scenes will be enacted (eg a tablecloth represents the sea, a manipulated small wood boat sways on the water). A bench where the two actors are seated in front of the table, trapped as if they were on the small boat of the couple whose story they tell. A grill suspended over their heads where a kitsch, poetic universe hangs: a set of small cardboard theatres reveals a theatrical machinery manipulated by the actors (movement of clouds, seagull flapping wings, small lighting…)

Agnès Limbos and Grégory Houben work together since 2006, when they created "ô!", at the Théâtre de la Balsamine (Brussels), a 25 minutes theatrical short film. That show evolved into "Troubles", an elliptic and displaced evocation of three moments on a couple's everyday life. "Ressacs" is born of their desire to prolong their duo. A distanced, precise, rhythmic theatre, where both text and actions are musical.

AGNES LIMBOS

Self-taught pad that took her, as a puppeteer to the Théâtre de Toone à Bruxelles (1973), on tour to the United States (1974), actress at Théâtre des Jeunes de la Ville de Bruxelles (1975/1976), student at the Internationale Mime Mouvement Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris (1977/1979), actress at Compagnie "Tres" in Mexico (1980/1982). In 1984, she created the Compagnie Gare Centrale, in Brussels. Agnès Limbos develops a personal take as an actress-creator. She specialized in object theatre developing this art form mixing the actors' play and the manipulation of objects. After founding the company, all the shows were singled out in several theatre, puppetry and young audience festivals abroad: they toured in Israel, England, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, USA, France, Brazil, etc. For each creation, the company surrounds itself with artistic and technical collaborators and there is an established fidelity, resulting from several years working together in multiple creations, with artists who take part or advise their projects: Françoise Bloch, Anne Marie Loop, Sabine Durand, Nicole Mossoux, Guillaume Istace, Lise Vachon, Marc Lhommel, Françoise Colpé, Nevill Tranter, among others.

GREGORY HOUBEN

Gregory Houben was born in 1978; his father is a musicians and his mother organizes shows, so he lived in an artistic environment from a young age. At the age of 14, he started his theatre studies at the Conservatoire de Verviers and he devotes to the art of speech. By this time, music was already tickling him and he studies diatonic accordion with Didier Laloy. When he was 17, he goes on an initiatory voyage to Brazil and it is during this year of discovery that he decided to dedicate his life to music. When he returns to Belgium he enrols full time at the Conservatoire de Verviers and studies solfeggio, harmony, piano… and trumpet. Two years later, he goes in the Maastricht Conservatory with Rob Bruinen and he will study there for a year. He finishes his studies at the Conservatoire de Bruxelles with Richard Rousselet. While studying he forms his first trio with Quentin Liégeois and Samuel Gerstmans. With his trio, Gregory finds a taste for singing and starts developing it. Afterwards, he forms a new project "Brazz" with Maxime Blésin. This band will perform essentially Brazilian music and will play in important Belgian venues such as la Grand Place, in 2003. With Julie Mossay he will form "Après un rêve" a band mixing classical, world and jazz music.

FRANÇOISE BLOCH

Since 2006, Françoise Bloch and her company Zoo Théâtre are developing a research in which documentary exploration (interviews, surveys, films…) is a platform for a kind of physical and critical theatre, meant to reinvent the potential paths between fragments collected from reality and their theatrical rearrangements; transpositions that convene movement, video and music and where actors – narrators – performers play all the roles. Startled by the obsession of evaluation, performance cult, formatting and in a general view, present-day capitalism violence, the company leans towards theatre's root: "to play", thus going back into play and reinvent oneself. Their last show, Money! (2013), created in collaboration with Théâtre National (Brussels), Théâtre de Liège et l'Ancre (Charleroi) was awarded "meilleur spectacle 2013-2014" at the francophone Belgium critique awards.