Short Pieces

Dehors/Dedans, petites formes théâtrales pour CPE, is a research-creation project that was led at the daycare centre CPE Sophie [Centre de la petite enfance] in Quebec City in 2011. Six short theatrical pieces emerged from the project, built for children aged 12 months to 5 years. These were easily transferrable to other childcare centers, and places where children evolve.

The idea: transform daily life by implanting outside worlds inside the daycare centre. Each performance was created within two four-hour development sessions, and featured artists from various disciplines.

These tiny worksites are like seedlings to fully-fledged plays. We created them for many reasons: to discover our audience members, start the creative engine, foster artistic and disciplinary encounters, and spark a connection between art and the children, and their educators, at the heart of their childcare center, where their experiences are formed on a daily basis.

Fields

Blue skies, cicadas and
Poppies.
Straw basket and
Checkered tablecloth.
Everything is perfection…
The field flutters with
life. With lives…

Night owls

«C’est la nuit qu’il est beau de croire à la lumière» – Edmond Rostand

Beneath the night sky,
a painter and a dancer
make the night sing.
Together they touch the stars,
Seize the moon, and
Give rise to dawn.

Lanes

In my heart of stone, you let the spring sow.

Between gray skies and sad gravel paths
There’s a man and a woman.
He’s spring and she’s winter.
Nothing could bring them together…
Nothing but a clothesline, to share.

Seas

Aquatic poetry for the bass and body

The breeze on the wave,
The birds above,
And under the water
She stirs, free.

Skies

A lifetime

She rocks herself, gently.
An ancient song rises
From deep within her soul.
Her worn heart is drumming.
Her memory hesitates.

She remembers.
The smell of freshly mown hay.
White clothes blowing in the wind.
Her mother’s hands.
Then nothing.

She rocks herself, gently.

Forests

Forests, paths and tiny treasures

The forest abounds with treasure
A little pond beyond
A clearing
Here, the whirring of the wind
And the smell of freshly fallen snow.

Over there
Two tiny creatures
Busied with inventorying the forest.
Acorns, pine nuts, mushrooms
Pebbles, flowers, branches

Everything is counted and stored
Inside their burrow