2024 Myth and Theatre Festival
July 4 to 14, 2024
Confirmed. // Web page still in the making
The IMAGE of our 2024 Festival is once again by Venetian Gianbattista TIEPOLO, favorite image-maker, up there with Rembrandt, Dürer, Leonardo, Picasso – (plus Kara Walker and African fetishes.) Venice was Europe’s palatial portico to Oriental Magic. Tiepolo was a contemporary of Mozart and Casanova; he was also Goya’s teacher…
I decipher Tiepolo’s image as a performance LABORATORY which the three main ‘masters’, artifex-magicians, (also called « The Orientals »), keenly observe, together with their doctoral students on the right (the younger ones, are behind them). Notice a monkey amongst them! The scene takes place in a graveyard; the focus is on a solo rêverie-performance by a woman in the foreground.
The festival will offer a bottle of champagne (on site) to the person who works out who the subject of her performance is !
See original print (with zoom arrow) on LINK
The festival will be exploring the very notion of GENIUS and its phenomenology in performance, and pay tribute to our two main inspiring geniuses: Roy Hart and James Hillman – and to Xavier Papaïs, whom I consider the most acute and broad-minded contemporary thinker on MAGIC today.
2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the ‘magic’ purchase of the Malerargues estate. 2025 will mark the abrupt and tragic death of Roy Hart, less than a year later. It is this second event that seizes my tragic and… magical attention.
Magic cannot be confined to optimistic illusions, but is often accompanied by terrible spells.
We will take on the notion of Genii in the practical and theoretical continuity of the ‘magical’ themes.
EP
See below for the EDITORIAL
Information updated 02/03/2024
The Myth and Theatre Festival was founded in 1986 under the auspices and presidency of American writer and psychologist James Hillman.
It is Pantheatre’s culminating annual event, interweaving performance practice with cultural studies, especially mythology and anthropology.
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See also the first EDITORIAL below.
The festival interweaves PRACTICE and THEORY under the concepts of Myth and Theatre.
PRACTICES are grouped around
VOICE PERFORMANCE and
CHOREOGRAPHIC THEATER
and incorporate ROY HART’s voice work
as well as singing, movement and text.
CULTURAL STUDIES constitute the reflective and analytical aspects of the interface between Myth and Theatre.
Alchemy makes it clear:
LABORATORIES cannot be effective (performative) without ORATORIES – and vice versa.
Full fee 800€
600€ for students under 24, Pantheatre Active Members and special requests.
You can also EMAIL us to reserve provisionally a place or ask for more information.
IMPORTANT Three Stages
First you must fill the REGISTRATION FORM
Second – if accepted, we will offer you a place
Third – you then must CONFIRM with your PAYMENT
Payments by
Bank transfer (in Europe)
Paypal (outside Europe)
Outline PLANNING pdf soon
The precise planning of the festival regarding performances, teachers and lecturers will be posted gradually. Some landmarks:
Full presence : July 4 to 14 (Bastille Day) = 11 days
Arrivals July 3rd, departures July 15 = 12 nights
Two half days OFF : Monday 8 morning (market day) and Thursday 11.
To get an idea, check the 2023 Festival Page.
10.00 – 11.00 Training Preparation for Choreographic Theatre
11.00 – 13.00 Choreographic Theatre Laboratory – Chorus and individual work, narration and the inclusion of TEXTS (cherry on the cake.)
+ LUNCH
14.30 – 15.45 Voice Classes and Singing Lessons (in small groups.)
16.00 – 17.00 Vocal Improvisation including musicians
+ BREAK
18.00 or 19.00 Lectures / Work in Progress / Study Seminars / Discussions
21.00 — Performances (not every day)
Check our ADVICE PAGE.
IMPORTANT : book earliest. Places at the Roy Hart Centre are limited. We can advise on other (very good) alternatives.
High season starts on July 15th so places and prices are still reasonable in the Region.
To book Lodging EMAIL PANTHEATRE
We will send you articles to read, and videos to watch in order to prepare.
Come with a working text and/or a song (learnt by heart) : not compulsory.
Dress code: priority to fantasy, but remember it is full summer, but often cool evenings…
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NEWSLETTER
Why Genii?
History
of the Festival
The Myth and Theatre Festival began in 1987 at Malerargues, the Roy Hart Centre, under the presidency of James Hillman, founder of archetypal psychology and main heir of Carl G. Jung, as a gathering of artists and psychotherapists, mostly American. But cultural polytheism did not fit in with the ‘Roy Hart’ of that era. From 1990 to 1997 the festival was hosted at the Chartreuse de Villeneuve lez Avignon (a golden exile), to then travel to New Orleans, Granada and Ireland. It returned to the Roy Hart Centre for a cycle on Myths of the Voice. Nobody had thought of the topic! Genii is part of our current cycle on Magic.
Festival HOMEPAGE
Story of
Why Genius?
Pantheatre defined itself, with a pinch of salt, as a School of Genius, at the 2003 Festival, in Granada. We were guests of the School of Architecture, a Mozarabic palace where our neighbor was a Spanish army garrison. Its impressive iron gates bore the motto School of Genius – of the military engineering kind, of course. Its motto was…: Doctrine and Dressage – which takes some beating!
Here is how we adapted it as Pantheatre’s aim: “The affirmation of personal genius – character and musicality – with a radical commitment to what one has to say and express.”…
Editorial
Enrique Pardo
Since 2017, Pantheatre and its Myth and Theatre Festival have been exploring different facets of MAGIC – considering Magic to offer the broadest and richest horizon of human agency and thought.
In 2024 and 2025, we will be exploring not only the genial plurality of Magic, tackling the very notion of GENIUS and its phenomenology in performance. We will also pay tribute to the main figures of genius who inspired Pantheatre, and with whom I was lucky to work and become friends, starting with Roy Hart and James Hillman. We will be paying tribute to other figures who have inspired our artistic and philosophical journey, especially Xavier Papaïs whom I consider arguably the greatest contemporary thinker on Magic.
The 2024 Festival will in fact be a prelude to that of 2025, as they both mark major fiftieth anniversaries: 1974 and the ‘miraculous’ purchase of the Malérargues estate, with the arrival of the first ‘pioneers’.
And then, less than a year later, in May 1975, the abrupt and tragic death of Roy Hart and his two companions, Dorothy Hart and Viviane Young, in a car accident.
It is, of course, this second event that seizes my tragic and… magical attention. Magic cannot be confined to optimistic illusions, but is often accompanied by terrible spells.
I consider Roy Hart to have been first of all an ethical genius; fifty years is enough to make of him, as an artist and director-guru, a legendary, even mythical figure. This is why I propose to include seminars under the title Roy Hart: Myth and Theater.
We will take on the notion of Genii in the practical and theoretical continuity of the ‘magical’ themes of recent years: Oracles, Luck, Superstition, Nekyia, The Task of Psyche, Fetish, etc.
Amplified EDITORIAL soon
How Genii?
TWO MAIN WORKING APPROACHES
Voice & SINGING
Direction : Linda Wise
With a pianist (tbc)
Taking Roy Hart’s extended voice work into singing, performance and interpretation.
If you think of genius as intimate, personal and emotional, it will show up, maybe in the texture and timbre of your voice, or in the moves you make, vocal and physical. That is what ‘singing’ is all about.
Choreographic Theatre
Direction : Enrique Pardo
with the members of his Paris Laboratory and guest artists
Choreographic Theatre : training in chorus disciplines that bring out personal genius… « Rules are made to confirm exceptions ».
“I understand choreography especially in terms of “making a move”: an esthetic AND ethical initiative, acted out.” My definition of IMPROVISATION: “Imps at work”. EP.
Where Genii?
The workshop-festival takes place at Malerargues, a pastoral paradise in the Cevennes foothills, Southern France, near Nimes, Montpellier and Marseille – in collaboration with the ROY HART CENTRE, its theatre spaces (the large building on the photo, a magnificent old silk-worms called a ‘magnanerie’), six working studios, some 12 pianos, in a domain of 30 hectares of Mediterranian forests – surrounding the hamlet and including a sturdy huguenot château ! (See below.) Pantheatre’s Library is installed in the chateau’s chapel, at the back of the image behind the tall cypresses.
Malerargues & Roy Hart Centre (a drone overview!)
The Festival?
The Myth and Theatre Festival was created in 1986 under de auspices and presidency of American writer and psychologist James Hillman
It is Pantheatre’s yearly key event, intertwining performance practice with cultural studies, especially in mythology and anthropology.
2022 23 Seminars
2022 Fall Cycle
2022 Summer Program
2022 Spring Cycle
2020 Festival
2021 Festival
2022 Festival
2023 Festival Fetish
Enrique’s BLOG
Direction Enrique Pardo with Linda Wise
Assistant Director, Daniela Garcia
Organisation Debora Ballardini
with Eloïse DeNayer
Advisors : Amy Rome, Douglas McArthur, Grace Zandarski
in collaboration with
Roy Hart International Artistic Centre
Univ. of Central Lancashire UK.
School of Film, Media & Performance. Dr. Amy Rome
University of Lethbridge, Canada
Coordination : Douglas McCarthur
La Compagnie des Chimistes
Pantheatre Membres Actifs
Membres du Laboratoire Paris
Mairie of Lasalle & Mairie of Thoiras
Pantheatre’s training is both advanced AND open to all: much more a question of attitude, personality and willingness to take risks, than of technical, musical or theatre skills – which, of course, are more than welcome.
Most participants have an interest in performance: physical or text-based theatre, danse or singing. Pantheatre’s training is a SYNTHESIS of these, applied to voice performance, singing and choreographic theatre.
Collaborators
Assistant Teachers and Performers
Eloïse DeNayer, Axel Chia, Mathis Capon (Chimistes Cie.)
Alice Bellefroid, Maya Lewandowski, Pauline Nozière
Social Media
(English & Spanish) : Querena, Izabel Akbal, Adriana Medina
Archives
Pantheatre Chile and Universidad de Chile
Direction Annie Murath
The Directors
My ‘cutting-edge’ work happens, unquestionably, in LABORATORIES, from where a whole series of performances, magnificent collaborations, have emerged. I call these Folies à Deux: intertwined transfers towards what is perhaps my main goal: psychological creativity. My role: laboratory director, the one Alchemy called ARTIFEX: artificer, catalyst and, why not, shaman: « You are a shaman as long as your luck lasts » (Roberte Hamayon). With age I seem to be getting luckier. This is beautifully described by Florence Derail in an email that ends like this:
« This workshop-Laboratory:
– is not a therapeutic place – despite the benevolence that prevails in them,
– it is a place where each participant, whatever his or her possible initial blockings, is placed in a state of hyper-creativity and hyper-receptivity, where intuition grows at a very fast pace.
– It’s a laboratory in the strongest sense, a place of experimentation [for whom? For everyone, including Enrique Pardo.] »
And THE VOICE in all this? I like an (indirect) definition by Giorgio Agamben: « Listening to the voice in speech, is what thinking is all about ». I also go along with Roy Hart’s favorite quote: « The voice is the muscle of the soul », after H. W. Longfellow. I say that I could be one of Roy Hart’s top lawyers, of his life, work and philosophy – while not necessarily agreeing with everything he did or said, especially fifty years later. EP
Enrique Pardo
© photo : Javier Riano de Echanove
Linda Wise
© photo : Javier Riano de Echanove
Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one. Socrates
I climbed through the looking glass at 10, as Alice, into the magic world of theatre: the joy of dancing with words, the elation of singing – and, no nerves! At 13 I knew Hamlet inside/out, (I was every night in the prompt box!): all I wanted to do was theatre. With friends, we created our first companyThe Young Players. I did stumble on some opposition, and some depressions, but at 18, I made it to the Royal Scottish Academy, and, at 19, I met Roy Hart’s group in London. A turning point. I became “passionately engaged with a vision of the voice that found its embodied roots with Roy Hart”. LW. read more
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