Voyage au cœur du processus créatif : L’expérimentation chez Nicolas Stemann

Abstract

In contrast to “répétition” or “rehearsal”, the German “Probe” emphasizes the idea of experimentation, like in a scientific experiment. Nicolas Stemann’s creative process is a quest for the unknown without a priori and desired result. It is a work in progress, an incessant movement, fruitful in proposals and open to experimentation. Non-linear, it does not follow the chronology of the text, but rather jumps from one excerpt to another, or from one material, subject and discursive level to another and likes to bring out many variations of acting and infinite possibilities of staging. The rehearsal process is made of several phases, from the preparation and conception to the improvisation work, from the progressive elaboration of a scenic text version to the structuration of the whole. The birth of the performance cannot be told as a linear and successful story. The only possible narrative: an extremely dynamic, spontaneous process, made of random results, attempts, trial and error, ruptures, interruptions, crises and accidents. Nicolas Stemann works like a painter through sketches and become at the end a film editor, cutting rushes. To examine the creative process in Stemann’s theatre is to discover the originality of his art in the European theatre landscape at the turn of the 21st century, at the crossroads of Regietheater and “post-dramatic” or performative theatre.