The late philosopher Bruno Latour worked with director Frédérique Aït-Touati to make the stage a place for “scenic essays” and philosophical experimentation in The Terrestrial Trilogy, a reflection on the need for a profound renewal of our representations of the terrestrial world, living and non-living.
The Terrestrial Trilogy started in 2016 with the INSIDE performance conference, followed in 2019 by Moving Earths and in 2020 by Viral. The three lecture performances are the result of a singular process of creation and long-term research developed at the Théâtre Nanterre Amandiers.
2 hours, 30 minutes (with intermission)
Zone Critique
Founded in 2004 in England by Frédérique Aït-Touati, the company Zone Critique explores different modes of theatrical writing and questions scientific and ecological imaginations.
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After several years of exploration of the French and English-speaking repertoire (Racine’s Phèdre, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Harold Pinter’s Landscape, Nathalie Sarraute’s Elle est là, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot), the company has dedicated itself to a research-creation work which was hosted in residency at the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon and at the Comédie de Reims in 2011 and 2012, then at the Nanterre-Amandiers theater since 2014. For the past ten years, the philosopher Bruno Latour and Frédérique Aït-Touati have been working together on projects at the crossroads of research and theater. Together, they develop different forms of theatrical and performative writing within the company Zone Critique. Between history of science, theater and philosophy, their collaborative projects question the aesthetic and political consequences of the change of cosmos that the sciences of the Earth System propose to us: lecture-performances (“Tarde/Durkheim”, Cerisy and Cambridge, 2007; “Bergson/Einstein”, Centre Pompidou, 2010; “Anthropocene Conference”, Musée des Confluences and Quai Branly, 2015), the show Gaïa Global Circus (2013-2016, touring in France, England, Switzerland, Germany, United States, Canada), the simulation Le Théâtre des Négociations / Make it Work (Nanterre-Amandiers theater, with Philippe Quesne, 2015), INSIDE (creation at the Nanterre-Amandiers theater 2016, on tour from 2017 to 2019 in Berlin, Frankfurt, New York, at the TJP-CDN in Strasbourg, at the Kaaitheatre in Brussels and at the Théâtre national de La Criée, Marseille, Gropius Bau – Berlin, Germany), Moving Earths (Uppsala – Sweden, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, Théâtre de l’Odéon, Collège des Bernardins, Yverdon les Bains – Switzerland, Gropius Bau – Berlin, Germany).
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Bruno Latour
Born in Beaune in 1947, Bruno Latour was a sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher of science.
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His work earned him the Holberg Prize, the highest distinction in the social sciences, in 2013. A professor at Science Po, he was interested in the sociology of science and the processes of scientific research (La Vie de laboratoire), the dynamics of innovations and the philosophy of the techniques that result from them (Aramis ou l’amour des techniques), or philosophical anthropology (Nous n’avons jamais été modernes) questioning the distinction between nature and society, and political ecology (Politiques de la nature). How to bring science into democracy? He curated several exhibitions: Iconoclash, Making Things Public, and Reset Modernity! He taught for a long time in engineering schools, first at the CNAM, then at the École des Mines where he joined the Centre de sociologie de l’innovation in 1982. In September 2006, he became a professor at Sciences Po. He managed their Médialab and created the SPEAP program. He passed away on 9 October 2022, at the age of 75.
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Frédérique Aït-Touati
A theatre director and historian of science, she explores the links between science, literature and politics.
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She created her company in 2004 in England where she staged Pinter, Tennessee Williams, Sarraute, Racine, Beckett. She was in residence at the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon and at the Comédie de Reims from 2011 to 2013 for the Gaïa Global Circus project, on tour until 2016 (France, United States, Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, Canada), and at the Nanterre-Amandiers theatre since 2014 where she created with Bruno Latour and Philippe Quesne Le Théâtre des Negotiations-Make it work (2015) then directed the following year Bruno Latour’s conference-performance, INSIDE (2016) and Moving Earths (2019). A researcher at the CNRS, she has published Fictions of the Cosmos (Chicago UP, 2011) and Terra Forma (B42, 2019). She teaches at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and leads the SPEAP experimentation laboratory.
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Duncan Evennou
Actor and director Duncan Evennou graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Art dramatique du Théâtre National de Bretagne under the artistic direction of Stanislas Nordey.
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Artist and researcher at SPEAP, a program of experimentation in arts and politics at Science Po Paris directed by Bruno Latour, he now develops an interdisciplinary theater through contemporary art, sociology and theatrical productions based on three main dynamics: creation, research and pedagogy. He founded the Lighthouse Company in 2018 with which he signed 5 shows. He has collaborated with Emilie Rousset, Stanislas Nordey, Bruno Latour, Lancelot Hamelin, Ulla Von Brandenburg, Ivana Muller, Pauline Simon, Joris Lacoste, Nadia Vonder Heyden Frédérique Ait Touati or Sophie Aude Picon.
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Patrick Laffont-DeLojo
Born in Marseille in 1976, Patrick Laffont-DeLojo is a visual artist, video director and set designer.
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He lives and works in Paris where develops his work “on stage” as close as possible to the performers. Since 2004, he has been working with Cyril Teste within the MxM collective and has collaborated with Skalen, a choreographic collective, Hubert Colas for nearly 15 years, Emilie Loizeau, Alain Françon, Robert Cantarella, Yves-Noel Genod, Jean-Louis Benoît, Thierry Thieu Niang, Benjamin Bertrand… In 2016 he exhibited a series of installations on Beirut at the Mucem, created Ctrl-X at the Théâtre de Poche in Geneva; created Mona with Emily Loizeau. He also designed the 4X11 scenic device for Gildas Millin. At the end of 2017 he presented his first solo exhibition – Bleu – at Lux, the national stage in Valencia. Since 2017 he has been collaborating with Frédérique Aït-Touati and Bruno Latour and teaches at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs.
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Credits
Text: Bruno Latour
Direction: Frédérique Aït-Touati
Set design, video, and lighting design: Patrick Laffont-Delojo
Music: Grian Chatten (Fontaines D.C.)
Assistant director and set designer: Esther Denis
Dramaturgy: Camille Louis
Scientific consultants: Déborah Bucchi, Emanuele Coccia, Nikolaj Schultz
With Duncan Evennou
Production: Zone Critique
Co-production: Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers
With support of the DRAC Ile-de-France and the Fondation Carasso
