Conception and direction: Charlie Windelschmidt and Valéry Warnotte
In acquaintance with the National Stages of Mulhouse (La Filature) and Le Havre (Le Volcan), The Inhabitants is an urban creation realized In Situ for and with the citizens of a given city. After a phase of observation, encounters, and residencies on the territory, the company imagines spectacular forms capable of reshuffling the cards of the contemporary myths and representation "game". The inhabitants become the accomplices of a humor-fuelled adventure.
Let’s share the witty pleasure of playing fiction as a reality... And vice-versa!
The Smallest Fairground of the World
In 2019 we did four In Situ artists-in-residence stays in the town of Chalonnes-sur-Loire, with the idea of recruiting the inhabitants that wished to join in. Each residence took place in a precise neighborhood and constisted in explaining the process, conceptualizing new kiosks, building small boats and organizing big bike parades throughout the town.
Many meetings for four phases of creation/research, they concluded with three days of final wanderings and nomadic representations around the writings of Charles Pennequin.
Gros Coco
Dérézo immerged for a fortnight in the the carehome of Lamneur with the objective of giving life to a very peculiar being, an atypical and baroque character, a quirky mascott: Gros Coco.
Gros Coco, with a full staff of photographers, caretakers and assistants, took part in all the collective activities but also in private invitations from the residents, with the complicity of some careworkers. A rare encounter that found the skylight of meaningful celebrations. And never resigning from our civic duty towards our elderly.
The National Theatre Team of France
The National Theatre Team of France gets together again for the Olympic Games of Paris 2024; a theatre company from Brest tries to have fairground theatre ratified for the future olympics. The Compagnie Dérézo is recruiting inhabitants from the suburbs of Dervaillères in Nantes, where the olympic expertise will take place, to become the actors of an itinerant fairground and hoist the colors of french theatre
System Die
The american hip hop band System Die, from Poplaf Bluff – Missouri, has decided to shoot the video clip of its next single, "Godmother", in Saint-Dié-les-Vosges to pay their respects to the city and show their gratitude to its inhabitants. They are recruiting 1507 Deodatian volunteers. The city has accepted the call of these talented musicians and they have agreed to represent their town and culture in this participative Livetake shot.
Green code
Caméra Quartier is a series of micro street videos that started in January 2015. A micro street video is the interview of an inhabitant who has agreed to play the game of the fiction Green Code. With a pad between your two eyes, your wireless interpersonnal communications, clean energy, passive and self-recyclable... In the private sphere and at work: Unique in the world!
Those micro-clips were shot on the go (or by appointment) in different spots on the Univerity campus, offering interviews to people using that means of communication who will tell the camera how it changed their lives!
Gemini Code - Le Havre)
An Indonesian cinema production company wants to produce the first movie ever shot only with mobile phones. The scenario? A gigantic adaptation of the Ramayana, the famous legend starring the princess Sita and the prince Rama.
Text: Lisa Lacombe
Barr-Amzer
The CommuniK’art agency is a communication platform specialized in the valorization of art as a means of prevention and security at sea.
In partnership with the ENIB (Ecole nationale d’ingénieurs de Brest), the CERV (Centre Européen de Réalité Virtuelle) and the Compagnie Dérézo, CommuniK’art recruited (between october 2016 and july 2016) 1000 virtual sailors. They participated in reinacting a giant storm on the docks during the international sea festival of Brest 2016. They lent their bodies and smarphones to the experience to develop the first high-sea rescue software (Barr-Amzer: smartphone and tablet software).