Les Grandes Personnes
Since 1998 the activities of Les Grandes Personnes collective have been bringing sculpture to the public, by exploring the interactions between the visual arts and theatre. From giant puppets that reach four metres high, to ten-centimetre tall terracotta workers (The Yellow Line), their creations demonstrate artistic work that focuses on the resources offered by papier mâché, Art Modeste, Mexican or Burkinabè crafts (Bona Kele), Street Art, collage (Grands Papiers, Les Yeux de la tête), the Fayum mummy portraits (The Balance), animated installations (The Dyeing Dart Frog) or more abstract expressions (Les Allebrilles). Oversized or minuscule toys, whether extravagant or simple, occupy an important place in the performances, because they are extraordinary dream machines for imagining or telling stories. We often find changes of scale, apparitions and surprises, whether in temporary urban décors (Les Théranthropes à Nanterre), in-and-out shows (The Giants’ Feast) or more intimate shows (By a Thread).
Reflecting on the interactions with the public, Les Grandes Personnes have developed various approaches to participatory workshops that combine not only a show’s literary and visual creation but also its performance Ancestors), and sometimes even include its demolition and recycling (Bourg-les-Cartons).
The performances question family ties, the transmission of values and anxieties, the couple, dreams and nightmares, ways of living in the city, colonisation and its aftermath, twentieth-century social advances, social and political utopias.
Supported by an affordable and convivial technique, Les Grandes Personnes residencies and workshops have given birth to offshoots around the world some thirty groups and associations from Boromo (Burkina Faso) to Madagascar, from Johannesburg to Maputo, from Swaziland to Valparaiso, making giants dance. This network of know-how and talent is ready to continue great adventures in faraway lands.
Finally, Les Grandes Personnes have their workshops and offices in Aubervilliers, France, within the Villa Mais d’Ici, a “cultural proximity site” and creative melting-pot for some forty collectives.
Last creation
Better Tomorrows
Peddling utopia in public space.
Better Tomorrows proposes to create an opening into positive futures. An actor carries a surprise box and asks passers-by to spend a minute or two watching the almost magical birth of a future without zombies, totalitarian society or ecological disasters. The overall set-up includes twelve boxes and eight actors, and as many possible futures, made by visual artists, written poetically .
_Better Tomorrows can be performed in English
Last creation
Mambo Jumbo
Mambo Jumbo is a street theatre creation halfway between masquerade and fashion show. A carnival-like parade composed of giants and characters with a rowdy look and mood whose contagious euphoria is transmitted like a virus through rhythm, dance, humour and derision.
Above all, Mambo Jumbo is a call for everyone to join the parade, to move, to dance, to create the conditions for a pandemic of good humour that spreads without distinction, without barriers, without borders.
A troupe of giants overruns the streets of the city. For the time of the parade it takes on the dress codes and musical rhythms of various emancipation movements, affirming with humour and a bit of arrogance the right of expression and dignity of struggling communities.
Last creation
Ancestors
The participatory performance Ancestors retraces the adventures that have succeeded in uniting our ancestors from their various regions or countries of origin. Mixing everyday scenes and adventures, the narrative relies on articulated figurines, sculpted by the participants. Having features of dolls, puppets and statuettes, they tell of exile, resistance, love and most especially give life to the mysterious and invisible link that each of us has with our ancestors.
In progress
Better Tomorrows
Peddling utopia in public spaces.
Better tomorrows wants to create an opening into positive futures. An actor carries a surprise box and asks passers-by to spend a minute or two watching the almost magical birth of a future without zombies, totalitarian society or ecological disasters. The overall set-up includes eight boxes, eight actors, and as many possible futures, made by visual artists, written poetically ...
In progress
Mixed Identities
Around us
Giant Papers - The Movie
Around us
2017 - Ancestors at La Courneuve
