The
Theater of Questions? What’s that? June 1999
One
day, a very long time ago, I saw an old rabbi running in all directions in the
Prague streets, looking insane and shouting: “I have answers! I have answers!
Does anybody have questions?"
Jacques Rebotier, Answer to the Previous Question.
The
Theater of Questions
Indeed,
there are too many answers in the world, and not enough questions! Let’s fight
the W.I.D. (World Interrogative Deficit)! Let’s reverse the situation!
The Theater of ...,
what’s that? That’s a good question.
A
process, out of n[i]
years. At the beginning, thousands of questions collected throughout the world,
mail boxes, the internet. In the end, in the year 2000 or so, a show entitled The Answer Off the Point: a show made
up of signs, movements, sounds, gestures, dances, videos, acrobatic feats,
lights.
The
beginning: a wide collection of questions from all around the world (France,
Ireland, Morocco, Tunisia, Germany, Poland, Australia, The United States,
Bolivia...), collected by mail, fax, telephone, the internet, and also by
mailbox-objects designed by plastic artists from all countries, and who travel
throughout the world. The first one, carried out by Virginie Rochetti, traveled
from festival to festival,
Maubeuge, Avignon, Pont-à-Mousson, Saint-Nazaire. The second one, by Tom
Lopez, was put in the Contemporary Art Museum in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Others are to be made.
Questions
are also designed or treated on the occasion of writing circles, dance
workshops or theatrical games (Berlin, Agadir, Saint-Nazaire, Nanterre ).
The
wide collecting has already started, in all languages, in all mouths. In the
end, it will make up the multilingual and multiglingual prologue of the show
entitled The Answer Off the Point.
Between this final point and the initial one, the Theater of Questions develops
itself as it pleases. It will undoubtedly get its rules, its laws, its working
time, its political parties, its kitchen, its furniture, its gods, its library,
its toys, its road maps, its history books, its post and its stamps, its
constitution, its ceremonies, its surveys, its questionnaires, its works of
art, its police, its catechism, its garbage cans.
From
time to time there will be some States
of the Question, meetings, shows, performances, installations, books,
exhibitions, which will permit questioners to take stock on the state of
deterioration of the project.
Questioning
friends, have you ever asked yourselves whether you had a question to ask?
If
you have, you are ready to participate in the Theater of Questions. If you haven’t, you are ready to participate
too.
First
degree questioners, you must thus dare to put a letter into the question box.
Second
dan questioners, this is an appeal: become an ambassador, a secretary or a
full-fledged citizen in the Free State
of the Question, conduct a survey, or, still better, your own quest:
sculptor, cashier, cobbler, graphic designer, lawyer, student, politician,
butcher, linguist, writer, historian, sailor, mailmen, porters,
commissionnaires, impostors, you can participate in the project as you see fit,
make up objects, texts, actions, design slip roads, question-shoes, register
the question-cries of question-animals, set up the interrogative map of the
territory, file the crazy questions asked by the great founding ancestors
(Ramon Lull, pseudo-Sidrac, Racine, Elle, Code civil, Marie-Claire...), make
the Theater of Questions divert its
course and, I hope, contribute, in this way, to lead it with us on the way
towards the perfect disaster.
As
for you, theaters, stations, garages, festivals, schools, public gardens,
firms, farms, spaces, participate in the movement of the Theater of Questions: house one for a while. Dig with us the Very
Deep Interrogative Hole! .
Interim government of the Free state
of the question:
Preacher:
Jacques Rebotier
Zoo
warden: Virginie Rochetti
Post
Office Secretary and impostor: Bertrand Couderc
Secretary
of State of emergency: Malte Martin
Secretary
of yetis, big foot etc: Karin Serres
Bicanet
second-in-command: Frédérique Bruyas
To
be continued...
To know about the diplomatic performances in different
countries, please contact us.
Not too late...
