Philippe Quesne / Vivarium studio

L'Effet de Serge

L’Effet de Serge is drama on a small scale, void of traditional thematic breadth and complex intrigues. The performance is the essence of frugality: no lavish dramatic gestures or abundant dialogue. The set is composed of empty walls, a ping-pong table, a snippet of a rug, a TV set, French doors opening onto a small garden. Serge’s subtle and focused concentration on his own universe highlights the implicit futility in our daily rituals and at the same time exposes the pleasure and necessity of these routines.

Philippe Quesne was born in 1970 and studied visual arts and graphic design at L’École Estienne and set design at L’École des Arts Décoratifs de Paris. He has designed for opera, concerts, theatre performances, and contemporary art exhibitions. In 2003, he created Vivarium Studio in Paris, a laboratory for theatrical innovation which features painters, actors, dancers, musicians and animals. He conceived the multi-media piece, The Itching of the Wings (La Démangeaison des Ailes), which premiered in Dijon, then toured internationally, including an appearance at TBA:06. From 2004 to 2006, Quesne wrote, designed and exhibited Des Expériences, an evolving project set in such diverse spaces as an art gallery, a forest, a pond, and a wasteland. Recent works include D’après Nature (2006), L’Effet de Serge (2007) and La Mélancolie des Dragons (2008).

This project is supported by Étant donnés: The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts, a program of FACE.

www.vivariumstudio.net

Quesne unmasks the great and doomed endeavors of human will: understanding nature, creating art, saving the world…he reveals the quality inherent in failure. The beautiful and the ludicrous converge where the impossible is pursued with a passion. Neue Zürcher Zeitung