No online album this time. Replace music with pictures. Our guests filmed some passages, but it would have been necessary to edit all of that, and I can’t settle for almost anything when the audio recordings are usually superb. My cinematic requirement will bring me back to memory. Memory of an exceptional afternoon, the first real day of summer. Everyone was obviously in a good mood. We also had to give hats because of the sun. There have never been so many people at my place Open Lab. The garden is obviously more spacious than the studio where the next sessions will be held, on September 8 with violinist Fabiana Striffler and Félicie Bazelaire on cello, on October 13 with clarinetist Hélène Duret and pianist Alexandre Saada. We have scattered comfortable armchairs wherever possible. All the seats were good, a matter of view, and during the entertainment I suggested that our guests exchange seats. The good weather therefore justified that my acolytes this time were two contact-improvisation dancers, Didier Silhol and Cléo Laigret…
I had rented for them the terrace and also an L-shaped corridor that allowed them to move in the middle of the public. For my part, or rather my sides, I had placed instruments in many places. I had hidden all the percussion equipment in the sauna cabin, placed the singing guide and the wireless amplifier of the Tenori-on on the compound, installed the shahi-baaja in the studio window, I could sit on to the amp where the Earth was connected. or playing blindly with studio synthesizers. And then the big bull, the flute, the reed trumpet, the percussion, etc., allowed me to evolve alongside the dancers.
Didier Silhol is a friend of forty years. We don’t often perform together, but it’s always a great pleasure to compare musical and choreographic improvisations. It must be said that the “contact” accompanies all areas as I feel at ease in all situations, as long as the sound production is proportionate to my fantasies.
As each time I ask the audience to choose the subjects or titles of our pieces, I impose the theme of the garden on them. We therefore have the right Trough, Peloso (like the palm), Twigs, Tractor, Poppy, Log And radishes.
After an hour and a half of the show, we all met in front of the buffet. Didier had prepared tarama, Cléo a seaweed tartare and hummus, and I an aubergine caviar whose green color was given by the importance of parsley. Our guests had also brought delicious food that we washed down with red wine, white wine, beer, morito, apple juice and water, because water is also very good, in any case I like it as much as alcohol.
Like everyone else Open Lab conviviality is key. We play as if we were family. As every day I try to reproduce the emotion of my fifteen years when only passion guided us, I also want to communicate to my guests this joy of living that the profession, the habits, the conventions, the needs tend to make to forget
Photo by Dominique Greussay, Martin Meissonnier, Christiane Louis, Sonia Cruchon
