Staging and set design residency.
Still practiced in the southern Massif Central, transhumance on foot is surrounded by a whole range of customs and know-how, contributing to the development of singular and unifying sound and visual landscapes.
Perhaps one of the most distinctive features of these transhumances is the acoustic clamour caused by the use of bells and rattles placed around the necks of the animals by their herders. Questioning the paramusical function of these objects, and the basis of their selection criteria (technical, acoustic, interpretative), reveals a degree of involvement on the part of breeders, shepherds and their bellringers in sound research that could be likened to the process of musical composition.
True "makers of landscapes", composers and performers roam the land, dressing it in their movement, their tinkling, their cries, their calls, which will take on a particular resonance as they cross: they thus shape a common listening culture, through their close association in the art of walking, interpreting and deploying the score in a spatialization where the environments bring an acoustic singularity to the composition.
Following on from the Faiseurs de Paysages research and collection cycle supported by the Occitanie Region's Aide au PCI in 2021-22, which focused on sound phenomena linked to transhumant pastoralism in the southern Massif Central, Beau Bruit is intended to present to the general public the initial results of the ethnographic survey conducted by Iris and around the following premise: Can we consider the orchestration of these ensconced herds as sound compositions resulting from research, whose interpretation is carried out by animals in a constantly evolving time and space? If so, what are the modalities of its implementation, and what does it tell us about the sound footprint of communities?
Coproduction
GMEM - Centre national de création musicale
Support
DRAC ; Parc National des Cévennes
Iris Kaufmann
Artist, ethnologist
Composer, singer, performer and ethnologist, born in Cairo in 1987. A gleaner of all kinds of sound bodies, sounds, songs, lyrics and practices from oral tradition, she bases her compositional approach on the reuse of these materials in the elaboration of plural artistic forms at the crossroads of research, artistic experimentation and heritage valorization. Founder of the FeM company and co-director of the DRALHAS cine-concert, co-produced by FeM & L'Excentrale, she has been working since 2018 on the use of bells in agro-pastoralism. As part of the BATALH! group, she is also collaborating on the invention of a new instrument, the campanophone, a device armed with bells and rattles. She is also studying electroacoustics at the Pierre Barbizet Conservatory and the Cité de la Musique in Marseille, and has been composing acousmatic pieces since 2021. Her research now spans several territories, and her skills are regularly called upon for sound creation and heritage enhancement projects.
Jean François Vrod
Violinist, composer
A violinist and composer with a background in traditional French music, he began playing the violin as a teenager, attending the Parisian Folk-Club "Le Bourdon". He then began collecting oral traditions from the mountains of the Massif Central (Cantal, Haute-Loire), then from the Auvergne colony in Paris. Concerned in his work as much by the valorization of knowledge linked to the collected repertoire (he is co-founder of the groups "Café-Charbons", "Compagnie Chez Bousca", "Trio Violon") as by a contemporary extension of the particular gesture of the traditional musician, his path is marked by numerous creative projects and artistic encounters.
He has collaborated with or crossed paths with : Dominique Pifarely, Régis Huby, Chris Wood, Chris Joris, Alain Savouret, Abbi Patrix, Fantazio, Denis Charolles and the Campagnie des musiques à ouïr, Jean Paul Goude, Frédéric Le Junter, Frédéric Aurier and Sylvain Lemêtre within the trio La Soustraction des fleurs, the Bela quartet, the Gmea d'Albi for two state commissions, Olivier Mellano, François Jeanneau, l'Ina-Grm, l'Imeb à Bourges, Jean Pierre Drouet, Fred Gastard, Jean Luc Faffchamps (Ensemble Ictus), Le Surnatural Orchestra, Le théâtre Athénor CNCM de Saint Nazaire, le GMEM - Centre national de création musicale de Marseille, la Philharmonie de Paris for the Studio 19 project..... His last two recordings with the trio "La Soustraction des fleurs" were released by Radio France on the Signature label, the third on Umlaut records.
Iris Kaufmann
artist, ethnologist
Jean François Vrod
external view, direction and set design
