A NIGHT WITH NO OPERA, aka "UNE NUIT"

The festival UNE NUIT is based upon disciplinary interactions over a short period of time: all guests come together on the first day of the week and work intensively until the first public play on the Friday night. UNE NUIT, unlike the title tells, is an experience over one week of continuous creations and ends with two live performances on the Friday and Saturday evenings.

UNE NUIT 2013 selected two teams of architects, who were selected after a competition, to build the stages and carefully chosen artists who will perform in these nests. Each scenography is specifically designed and built in situ by the architects and volunteers, while the rehearsals develop into a proper show throughout the week: all productions ought to stem from the same source of inspiration, R. Strauss’s Elektra. Whether artists and architects choose to work on costume, score, context, a dialogue, a monologue, a past scenography is a decision, which belongs to them only. Artistic directors in this respect are to ensure that each projects develop into qualitative productions.

A SCENOGRAPHY FOR A PERFORMANCE More than just a set, the scenography is a unique and original art piece in its self. The Festival’s artistic directors closely follow-up the materialisation of all projects. The week of construction in-situ lies at the heart of the experiment.

A PERFORMANCE FROM A LYRIC PIECE In parallel to the scenographic production, artists are invited to create a performance. They are free to base their creative works on any elements of the lyric genre (be it score, costumes, book, staging...) as long as the link - either close or far fetched - with the chosen lyric piece, exists.

A WEEK OF RESIDENCE All of this comes together during the week of residence, on site, with a team of more than 40 volunteers. This week of residence is the opportunity for each participant to move beyond the autonomy of his or her art thanks to the creating and working conditions provided by SOHBA, which truly allow to «build together» ( «faire ensemble»).

UNE NUIT 2013

The event is made of different and separated spaces, each and every one being specifically designed by architects: a welcome area, a bar, two performing stages and a hosting garden (a Provençal mansion).

Inspirational lyric piece of UNE NUIT 2013: Elektra

The opera, Elektra, surely holds within its title and beyond the story, a very evocative title, which carries the potential to offer new insights on mny subjects. Via the experience of each stages and performances, successively used as toolsets, the audience will grasp the various meanings encapsulated in the opera piece.

All spectacles are the end product of clashes rather than compromise, of transformations rather than adaptation of architects, dancers, actors and musicians visions. Coming to UNE NUIT from around the globe and from various disciplines, all participants work to be best understood by their associates, so as to find together a way to convey their vision to the public. Thus, the action of translating, in every sense of the term, becomes a key element in the experiment.

UNE NUIT 2013 has invited 2 teams of architects UNULAUNU and SOUTHOGREEN, on the basis of their project which was selected in 2012 after careful consideration among the great quality projects which were collected in the competition. They have been put in charge of designing and building the first stage. To do so, thay will have ‘at their diposal’ a team of 10 volunteers to manage during 5 days.

UNULAUNU Team

CIPRIAN RASOIU - Romania

Architecture, Ion Mincu University (Bucharest) + Stuttgart University

Practices: Behnisch Architekten (Stuttgart), ReDesign Studio (Bucharest), OMA / Rem Koolhaas (Rotterdam).

LIVIU VASIU - Romania

Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio

Practice: Valerio Olgiati’s (Flims).

MATEI VLASCEANU - Romania

Architecture, Ion Mincu University (Bucharest) + KU Leuven

Practice (s):OMA/Rem Koolhas (Hong Kong + Rotterdam).

TUDOR VLASCEANU - Romania

Architecture & Urbanism Ion Mincu Universiy (Bucharest) + TU Delft

Practices: OMA/Rem Koolhaas, Graft (Berlin), On Office (Oslo/Dubai), Spacegroup (Oslo)

ROMINA GRILLO - Como, Italia

Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Switzerland

Practices: C. Kerez architektbüro (Zürich) + OMA / Rem Koolhaas

They were commissioned to built the national Pavilion for Romania at the Venice Internationale Biennal of Architecture in 2010. Past projects include: House of Architecture, Movi Sad, SRB / house G, Tiganesti, Ro / competition, Ciprian Porumbescu, Brasov, RO / house D, Targu-Mures, RO / Europan, Deventer, NL

SOUTHOEGREEN Team

NICK GREEN - London, UK

Nick graduated from the Oxford Brook Architecture university, and joined Saunders Boston as design and envionmental policy manager. He now lives in Berlin and works with “Raumlabor”.

SAMUEL DIAS CARVALHO - Porto, Portugal

Samuel studied Architecture in Porto, and rapidly move to Berlin to work in the very active group of architectes “Raumlabor”.

ORGANISATION

Based on the increased recorder in the last few years, SOHBA awaits more than 350 spectators for 2013 edition of UNE NUIT.It appears that the public is not only french. About 25% of the public comes from abroad. In addition,participants are mostly from abroad. In 2011, only 15% of the team was French. During the week of residence, the team grows up to 50 members working in-situ for 5 days in a row.

The team is dedicated to creating the conditions for allowing participants’ personal visions and strategies to crash, which - thanks also to the very short period of time - create a rich event. Working along the lines of this “art total”, yet in a transgressive fashion, the Festival is an opportunity for alternatives: it intends to touch upon aesthetic and societal dilemma. Behind this initiative lies the belief that once the debate is moved away from traditional settings and methods of interactions, innovative readings may come about.

The INTENTION is to harnest, by means of stagings, spontaneousness, to turn it into a token of both quality and sincerity in order to uncover and discover innovative and pluralgrounds for thoughts. The basic principle is a set of rules to be transgressed. SOHBA offers to invitees, an opportunity to go beyond the traditionnal means of seeing and making sense of the world, by imposing another language formed in another discipline’s territory. These meetings reveal an enlarged vision, and act as a revenge of the usually rather enclosed means of expression.

UNE NUIT SANS OPERA

The publications