Festival de la cité de Lausanne - du 4 au 9 juillet 2017 - 46ème édition

Collectif BPM, Le Collectif BPM Büchi/ Pohlhammer/ Mifsud (CH)

Theatre

What do a moped, a cassette tape and a rotary dial phone have in common? They are obsolete objects that have the power to awaken so many memories. Just mentioning them brings a smile to our face, and flashbacks start dancing before our eyes as our minds travel to a recent past. The Collectif BPM is having loads of fun bringing back these blasts from the past in their piece “La Collection”.

The three performers, Catherine Büchi, Léa Phlhammer and Pierre Mifsud, revive these almost-forgotten pieces by narrating their long lost stories in three short skits of about thirty minutes. The show becomes a cabinet of curiosities filled with fun, laughter and excitement. “The actual objects are not physically present on stage. The idea is to bring them to life through acting. It is an imaginary museum aiming to unearth buried memories,” describes Pierre Mifsud.

Each piece of treasure in this allegorical museum is scrutinized based on its characteristics. The cassette tape (or just cassette for those in the know) has this strange ability to playback our own recorded voices. Bewildering, isn’t it? And what about the moped, a symbol of an entire generation? “Conjuring these objects makes us wonder who we were when these things were popular,” adds Pierre Mifsud. “The moped brings us back to our teenage years, the ideal metaphor for freedom.” As for the rotary dial phone, it comes back through the lens of cinema, playing in different movie scenarios (funny and not so funny) in which it is featured.

The actors initially met within the 2b company. In this piece, the trio evolve together on a barren stage that only has three chairs and empty space as décor. Andrès Garcia fills some of the void with sound effects.

Dressed (or rather, overdressed) to the nines, these wacky characters piece back the fragments of these objects that were commonplace not too long ago and pull them out of oblivion using their memories and their own personal experiences.

Oh, nostalgia…

Galerie

• Collectif BPM - Morgane Raposo

• Collectif BPM - Morgane Raposo

• Collectif BPM - Morgane Raposo

• Collectif BPM - Gabrielle Besenval

• Le Collectif BPM Büchi/ Pohlhammer/ Mifsud - Gennaro Scotti

• Collectif BPM - Gabrielle Besenval