Ombres Portées
Cie L’Oublié(e) | Direction and choreography by Raphaëlle Boitel | Artistic collaboration, light, scenography, Spider design by Tristan Baudoin | Original music by Arthur Bison
ACROBATIC THEATRE | FRANCE
“Discovering our shadows and buried courage.” —Raphaëlle Boitel
A visually cinematic take on the ghosts hiding in the shadows of our families and selves, Raphaëlle Boitel’s latest choreographic and acrobatic work plunges us into the heart of the unsaid. At the crossroads of circus, dance, and theatre, Ombres Portées surrounds K, an energetic but wounded young woman looking for answers, and on a Kafkian quest for identity among numerous members of her family. A vivid physical exploration of trauma, courage, and the volatility of our senses of balance and self, Ombres Portées takes inspiration from film endings including those of Requiem for a Dream, Brazil, Festen, and Parasite, and the bodies of work of Fritz Lang, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.
Program
Gallery
Amplify
Suspended in Air, Searching for Connection in Two High-Flying Shows
The song is indistinct at first, as the barefoot man descends from the ceiling in hazy darkness. And when we can make out the tune — “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do” — it’s almost spooky in its old-timey sweetness, at odds with the spare, forbidding space we see before us. 
PEAK Performances at Montclair State University presents the U.S. premiere of Ombres Portées
PEAK Performances at Montclair State University presents the U.S. premiere of Ombres Portées from Cie L’Oublié(e) March 23-26, 2023. This performance is directed and choreographed by Raphaëlle Boitel with collaboration from light designer Tristan Baudoin and original music by Arthur Bison.
Raphaëlle Boitel ‘circus noir’ work, ‘Ombres Portées,’ tells story of a troubled family
Like most people, the characters in “Ombres Portées (Shadows Cast)” have restless nights. Memories haunt them, rising unbidden out of the darkness and bringing to mind old injuries and quarrels.
Credits
U.S. Tour Partners: ArtsEmerson, Emerson College (MA), The Williams Center, Lafayette College (PA), and PEAK Performances @ Montclair State University (NJ).
The presentation of Ombres Portées by Cie L’Oublié(e)—Raphaëlle Boitel has been made possible with the support of FACE Contemporary Theatre, a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, with support from the Florence Gould Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Institut français, the French Ministry of Culture, and private donors.
This season was made possible, in part, by the Alexander Kasser Theater Endowment Fund, PEAK Patrons, and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
