La Barque Silencieuse / the Silent Boat, La Barque Silencieuse / the Silent Boat

What is listening? Who, or what, in us, listens when we gather ourselves up to let ourselves be penetrated by a piece of music, a song, or the rhythm of a dance? Julie Chaffort has chosen to give multiple forms to this invisible vessel which is listening: at times a horse, at times a cow, or a boat, a stream of water, a landscape, branches, a boxer, a dancer, etc. In the region of Monflanquin, in the South-West of France, she met inhabitants that she had participate in a series of animated scenes in which the “emitters” of music (singers, choristers, instrumentalists, including a gramophone) enter into a dialogue with the audience, who are quiet of course, but remain active. The result is both mischievous and moving, as derailing as respectful of all that it offers to see and hear. The boat is loaded, then, of colourful people, ostentatiously attired, a mad boat where the madness is the sound, the sounds’ gestures, and the muted recital of sounds. (JPR)