Navigating Turbulence - From Calvin to Calvinland, a political and artistic investigation on Geneva's subconscious

Monday 4 December 2017

HEAD, Boulevard Helvétique 9
Salle de séminaire CCC, 2ème étage
at 7pm

Dominique Ziegler avec la participation de Olivier Lafrance
Entrée libre

“A people without the knowledge of their history is like a tree without its roots” said Marcus Garvey, the Rasta prophet. Bob Marley and Burning Spear, to mention only the most famous Jamaican artists, dug into their past to reach the source of their African origins. The rich history of the Canton of Geneva, which has seen Julius Cesar, Rousseau, Dunant, Lenin, the premises of the French Revolution, the Sociétés des Nations, etc. is hardly put forward by the present politico-cultural authorities. Apart from some episodic celebrations in 2009, the tutelary figure of Calvin seems to be neglected or ignored by the majority of the people of Geneva. However, without Calvin, Geneva would certainly have disappeared or would have become a Savoyarde or Bernese borough. Calvin was the inventor of a hitherto unparalleled form of theocracy. His peculiar vision of the relationship between Man and God ; of the non-remission of sins ; of the relationship between the individual and the collectivity ; his organization of society, foreshadowed attempts at distant (even sometimes atheist !) political systems in the 21st century and the creation of the new man! Calvin’s relationship to education, writing, moral values, public freedom, women, economy, deserves to be examined further because we stillrely on it today, for better or worse. How to take hold of these crucial questions through profaneinvestigations and theater?

Born in 1970, Dominique Ziegler is a playwright and stage director. He created Calvin, a monologue with actor Olivier Lafrance in the role of Calvin. Works of his, such as: N’Dongo revient (2002), Affaires privées (2008), Patria Grande (with Coline Serreau, 2011), Le trip Rousseau (2012), Pourquoi ont-ils tué Jaurès (2013) were presented in cities like Geneva, Lausanne, Paris, Bruxelles, Avignon, just to name a few. His recent plays Ombres sur Molière (2015) and La Route du Levant (2015, both made in Geneva, have been shown at the Festival d’Avignon in 2017 and will be on tour throughout the next year. Dominique Ziegler advocates for a political, historical, popular and ludic theater. His play “Le rêve de Vladimir (Lenin)” was staged at the Théâtre Alchimic in Geneva in November 2017.Olivier Lafrance was trained as a comedian with Claude Stratz at ESAD. In Geneva, he performed in Romeo and Juliette by Shakespeare ; La griffe by Barker ; Le Sous-sol and Les démons by Dostoievski ; Huis-Clos by Sartre, Dans la solitude des champs de coton by Koltès, among others. He also played in several plays from Dominique Ziegler, such as Virtual 21, Patria Grande, Pourquoi ont-ils tué Jaurès ?Ombres sur Molière, Le rêve de Vladimir. After directing La quatrième dimension by Rod Serling and La ferme des animaux by George Orwell, he presented Frankenstein by Mary Shelley at the Grütli Theater in December 2016.

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Olivier Laurence dressed for the play « Calvin, un monologue »
© Dominique Ziegler