nonsense is good: The enchantment of the bad seed

Slightly deviated from the schedule, the show started few minutes past eight o’clock. When the seats were almost full, the lights turned off, and only a sharp spotlight leads to the front of the stage.
A simple lighting yet produces a sense of dramatic decorated show. Inspired by a literary fairy tale, that is beloved around the world as a tale about personal transformation ‘The Ugly Duckling‘ by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen (18051875). The show were performed by a French group named ‘Compagnie à’. I might say this is a peculiar blend that gives a little surreal feeling, using the attraction of clowns and object theater, combining elements of humor with violence, tragedy with comedy, giving an idiosyncratic and poetic perspective on social and political context.
Contemporary fairy tale ‘Mauvaise graine‘ or ‘The Bad Seeds’ tells the story of exclusion, difference, exile and hope. I was stung by the touchy feelings of ‘ugly duckling’ figures that were born by Dorothée Saysombat and the melody of accordion that sound like a lullaby by Scott Taylor. With a cruel and moving social message, revolving around four seasons (and it was amusing because they were trying to present the season name in Indonesian – of course with their outlandish accent 0-Musim Panas, Musim Semi, Musim Gugur, Musim Dingin).
‘Mauvaise graine’ talks about how others (society, neighbours, family) view the ‘different’ person, the person who doesn’t conform to what is seen as ‘normal’. It develops a theme very relevant to today’s world. Who are the ‘ugly ducklings’ today? Who decides whether a person is ‘different’, ‘ugly’ or ‘beautiful’? imagine if we are a hairy, stinking and awkward web-footed animal? How we will make it?
‘Compagnie à’ was found by Dorothée Saysombat and Nicolas Alline in December 2003 in Angers, located inthe Maine-et-Loire department in western France. Out of a desire to explore various forms of expression, through the interaction between the artist and the object being manipulated, the interaction with the audience, sound and space. This explains their preference focusing on the theater of objects, clowns, animated forms and small movements, to create an intimate and precious relationship with the spectators through specially designed for a smaller audience.
The enchantment of the splendiferous theatre was held on Sunday, March 6th on 4pm and 8pm, at Teater Kecil, Taman Ismail Marzuki. And it was brought by Central Culturel Francais Jakarta.
The artistic Team of ‘Mauvaise graine’
- Dorothée Saysombat – Actor comedy, co-director
- Scott Taylor – Playground Music
- Nicolas Alline – Actor comedy, co-director
- Isabelle Fuchs – Sound Playground
- Jacques Templeraud
- Yumi Fujitani
- Geraldine Bonneton
- Mathilde Gallay-Keller
- Bernard Rodrigue

also on : http://whiteboardjournal.com/news/event/the-enchantment-of-the-bad-seed.html