A special community performance event at the 2022 Season Closing Celebration. C’est pas là, c’est par là (It’s Not Here, It’s Over Here), produced by France-based studio Compagnie Galmae, invites community members to come together and untangle and maneuver through a massive web made of string.
How does the crowd move? What is an individual within a group? How do we work together to solve a problem? On the old “tent site” at PS21 a dense string installation resembling a spider’s web is set up to fill the entirety of the space. Passing over and under the threads, hundreds of participants help each other make sense of the web and roll it up into a single ball. It’s fun, participatory, political, playful, and collaborative, and the perfect celebration of our PATHWAYS series.
Compagnie Galmae is led by Juhyung Lee, who discovered street arts performances in 2012 in Seoul. In 2015, Juhyung Lee joined the FAi-AR in Marseille. C’est pas là, c’est par là is his first original creation and has been performed at festivals and events in many countries. He is interested in the concepts underlying large-scale performances, especially exploring the role of the individual within a group dynamic.
In 2012, while doing his military service, South Korean Juhyung Lee participated in Bivouac by Générik Vapeur at the Seoul Street Art Festival. This encounter was a real turning point, and in 2014, he abandoned his law studies to join Générik Vapeur in Marseille. During his first year at the Cité des arts de la rue, he met apprentices from the FAI-AR (Formation supérieure d’art en espace public) and was inspired to do this training in 2015. In 2017, he created Galmae, an artistic company that performs in public spaces. In 2018, he won the Bourse SACD Auteurs d’Espace.
“When I created this show,” Juhyung Lee said in an interview, “my question was: to what extent can one say that a performance is political? A “committed” show wasn’t the answer for me. I wanted to imagine a situation where the spectators look at themselves instead of at the artists. I wanted to avoid being in the position of teaching the audience a lesson.”
“During the demonstrations I took part in in South Korea, the police blocked the avenues with buses to prevent the protesters from marching. We tied ropes to the wheels of the buses and pulled together to create a gap so that we could pass. I wanted to do something with this rope, but initially I had no idea what . . . And then, as I touched it, I saw that the rope was made of many strands.” Juhyung Lee reproduces the experience of gathering and gives meaning to the “we” that is often lost in our individualistic world. The artist guides the collective body, the movement, and the interplay between light and shadow, while the music introduces an element of poetry to the universal theme of the social link. While individuals lose a part of themselves in the crowd, Juhyung Lee shows that the group experience is first an intimate reflection on oneself and then a way of defining a part of one’s identity in relation to the community to which one belongs.
Realization and direction Juhyung Lee
Lighting Olivier Brun
Composition Charles-Henri Despeignes
Technical Pauline Lavergne
Executive Producer Generik Vapeur
Touring Camille Grant – Productions Bis
Coproduction Le Citron Jaune, L’Abattoir
With the support of SACD –Auteurs d’espaces
Resident hosts La Passerelle, National theatre of ‘Alpes du Sud’ – Gap
The presentation of the performance installation C’est pas là, C’est par là by Compagnie Galmae is possible with the support of FACE Contemporary Theater, a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, with support from The Ford Foundation, Institut français, the French Ministry of Culture, and private donors.
