What brought the legendary team Chaignaud - Brébant together in the first place is perhaps their mutual inclination to a fusion of sound and movement in a historical context. Chaignaud, who graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse de Paris in 2003, has ever since been creating pieces in which music and dance intersect, while Brébant studied ballet and has earned two degrees in harpsichord and basso-continuo. Furthermore, both authors seem to be inclined towards grand-scale projects: in Symphonia, they set to perform the entire liturgical song cycle by the composer, nun and mystic Hildegard of Bingen (12th cent.), whose art is ecstatic, meditative and hypnotic, as if it were coming from another world. They approach her mysterious notations and notes quite literally, the scenographic and dramaturgical sculpture is about to become a performance, the world is being expressed in its entirety, this is a theatre of existence, and its authors are focused on establishing a total event. 

Conception and performance: François Chaignaud, Marie-Pierre Brébant; based on Hildegard von Bingen’s musical works (1098-1179); musical adaptation: Marie-Pierre Brébant; scenography: Arthur Hoffner; light Creation: Philippe Gladieux, Anthony Merlaud; sound design conception and installation: Christophe Hauser; artistic collaboration: Sarah Chaumette; costumes: Cédrick Debeuf, Loïs Heckendorn; tattoos creation: Loïs Heckendorn I Print Micka Arasco; technical manager: Anthony Merlaud / François Boulet; latin prosody Angela Cossu; administration/production: Barbara Coffy-Yarsel, Chloé Schmidt, Jeanne Lefèvre, Clémentine Rougier; diffusion: Sarah de Ganck/ART HAPPENS 

Production: Vlovajob Pru; co-production: Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy, France – Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, Belgium - PACT Zollverein, Essen, Germany – Centre chorégraphique national de Caen en Normandie, direction Alban RICHARD / Accueil-Studio / Ministère de la Culture – BIT Teatergarasjen Bergen, Norway – Arsenal/Cité musicale, Metz, France – CN D Centre national de la danse, France – MC93 Maison de la Culture Seine-Saint-Denis, Bobigny, France – Les 2 Scènes, Scène nationale de Besançon, France – La Bâtie, Festival de Genève, Switzerland – TANDEM, Scène nationale, Arras-Douai, France – Festival Musica Strasbourg, France; with help from: Villa Noailles, Hyères, France – CN D Centre national de la danse (residency), Pantin, France – BoCA (Biennale of Contemporary Art), Porto, Portugal — La Métive lieu international de résidence de création artistique (residency), Moutier d’Ahun, France – FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon (residency), France — Les Subsistances, Lyon (residency); special thanks to: Lucie Jolivet, Lyubomyr Shevchuk, Catherine Schroeder, Léo Henry, Eugénie de Mey, Patricia Allio

Vlovajob Pru is subsidised by the Ministère de la Culture (DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes). Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud are associate artists at Bonlieu Scène nationale Annecy.

©Anna Van Waeg