Jean-Jacques Lemêtre
Since 1979, Jean-Jacques Lemêtre has been the composer for France’s internationally celebrated Théâtre du Soleil, collaborating with director Ariane Mnouchkine.
He has been making music since he taught himself how to play a variety of instruments as a child, before undertaking comprehensive academic training at the Conservatoire de Paris. A musician of starling diversity, Lemêtre has also performed with symphony orchestras, medieval music ensembles, Pierre Boulez and his Orchestre Intercontemporain, rock bands, and jazz groups.
He has brought his music all around the world, from the Arctic, to Brazil, to Canada and most recently to Afghanistan.
WORKSHOP
Musical body
Music played an integral role in ancient Greek drama. The text was written under a certain music rhythm, while the Chorus narrated most of the story through song and dance, creating a unique bond between the performer’s body and the overall tone and mode of a play.
Participants will explore and experiment with the human body’s capacity for sound. Both individual and collective exercises will be conducted leading to a process of musical elaboration that will draw on Jean-Jacques Lemêtre’s creative experience through his work with the Théâtre du Soleil. Participants will be encouraged to go beyond the technique and, through dissociation and disharmony, examine how artists relate to their environment. This method calls for a re-learning of the body’s rhythm and the role of music in theatre.
The group will work without musical instruments, in order to fully explore the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic potential of our bodies through movement, breathing and speech patterns.