Date(s)

Friday,March 6, 20263 p.m.

Venue(s)

Petit Outremont
1248 Bernard Avenue West
Montréal (Québec) H2V 2V6
Phone: 514-495-9944, ext. #1
SEE MAP

Tickets

Free

Moderated by Antonia Leney-Granger, this roundtable discussion brings together artists from different generations and geographical backgrounds to explore a fundamental question: How does an object become a vector for playwriting and creative expression?

Drawing on a range of practices, the discussion will examine how everyday materials, brought to the stage, acquire narrative and symbolic meaning, in dialogue with the body, spoken word, and physical space.

Special attention will be paid to the object’s cultural dimension, whose meanings evolve depending on context, territory, and imagination.

An opportunity to exchange ideas and to reflect on the object’s role as an ally of contemporary dramaturgy.

 

Moderator

 

Panellists

 

 

Moderator

 

Antonia Leney-Granger (Montréal)

Antonia Leney-Granger, the Executive and Artistic Director of Théâtre du Renard, is a Montréal artist and educator specializing in object theatre and transdisciplinary creation, with a particular interest in bridging the gap between art and science.

The world of physics provided inspiration for her shows Une brève histoire du temps (2019) and La rébellion du minuscule (2024). She explores ecology and the human-nature relationship with the podcast Enracinés | Récits de nature (2022) and the arts outreach project Les saisons enracinées (2024).​​ She received the inaugural Culture and Ecological Transition grant awarded by the Conseil régional de l’environnement de Montréal (2023) for her  work connecting urban nature and artistic creation.

Antonia also works with Théâtre de la Pire Espèce as a trainer, creator, and assistant director. Very involved in her community, Antonia was Vice-President of the Association québécoise des marionnettistes from 2018 to 2024, sat on the board of UNIMA-Canada from 2020 to 2024, and was involved with the organization of the OUF! Festival Off Casteliers. Since 2022, she has been a member Culture Montréal’s Culture and Ecological Transition Commission.

 

 

Panellists

 

Mamby Mawine (Senegal)

Senegalese artist, stage director and instructor Mamby Mawine has devoted over thirty years to creating theatre for young audiences. She began her training in 1994 with Marcià de Castro at the Institut Français du Sénégal, in Dakar, before continuing her studies in Paris, at the Atelier d’expression théâtrale Radka Riaskova, thanks to a grant from the Coopération française.

Upon returning to Dakar, she established Senegal’s first clown theatre company, Côté Jardin, and in 2005, along with her husband, Alessandro Fanni, created Association Djarama. In 2015, they founded a multidisciplinary arts centre in Ndayane, near Toubab Dialaw, dedicated to providing theatre training as well as creating theatre, circus, and puppet shows.

Since 2013, Djarama has been organizing Djaram’arts international festival of puppetry arts in Senegal.

Today, Mamby Mawine is the Artistic Director of the Djaram’arts Cultural Centre in Ndayane. She continues to write, create, and teach, using theatre to reach out to children and to foster imagination and intercultural dialogue in Senegal and abroad.

 

 

Agnès Limbos (Belgium)

Agnès Limbos is a playwright, actress, stage director, and professor of theatre. She is the founder of Compagnie Gare Centrale (1984), a theatre company that creates shows exploring the artistic potential of object theatre and puppetry

Her travels, training, and creative work have broadened her perspective and technique, allowing her to develop a unique approach. She is an iconic figure in the world of object theatre, an art form characterized by attention to detail that is both visually stunning and taps into the unconscious.

Agnes Limbos has always been fascinated by objects as actors in their own right and by the performer’s ability to manipualte them. Objects are not considered as theatre props, but rather as fundamental elements of the production, and pillars of the performance. Everything is calculated, imagined, and carefully thought out to convey them as actual entities, true effigies of the story’s protagonists.

 

 

Lisa Peyron (Spain)

Lisa Peyron has been working with various companies over the past 20 years, both on stage and in the street, as a performer, co-director, set painter, and prop master (Théâtre des Crescite, Cie du Chat Foin, Carnage Productions, Typhus Bronx, etc.).

She discovered object theatre in 2021, thanks to Katy Deville, and subsequently created La Loquace Compagnie with Daniel Olmos. VIVA! is their first production.

 

Julie Vallée-Léger (Montréal)

Julie Vallée‑Léger graduated from the set design program of the National Theatre School of Canada in 2002. She completed her training by assisting set designers Jean Rabasse at Cirque du Soleil and Stéphane Roy on music hall and opera projects. She subsequently worked as a set designer on several film and television projects, as a designer for Radio-Canada, and as an exhibition designer for architects Lupien and Matteau and for GSM Project.

Julie’s practice focuses on set design and stage writing, object theatre research, and the manipulation of raw materials. She has designed sets for several companies, notably for Théâtre de la Pire Espèce (with which she has been experimenting since 2007), as well as for Théâtre Le Clou (since 2012). She also works with Mammifères, Système Kangourou, the Centre du Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui (CTD’A), Kleine Compagnie, La Banquette arrière, and Mandoline Hybride. She contributes to various artistic events, notably those held at Théâtre Aux Écuries. She is also a printed-object illustrator, with linocut printing being her preferred technique. Her portfolio can be viewed at julievalleeleger.com.

 

 

 

Miguel Angel Gutiérrez (Mexico)

Miguel Angel Gutiérrez holds a degree in graphic communication design from CUAAD (University Centre for Art, Architecture and Design at the University of Guadalajara, 1994-1998). Since 1997, he has devoted himself to stage design, as well as to arts management and development. He is a three-time winner of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (National System of Artistic Creators) award, a distinction granted by the Mexican Ministry of Culture to creators with outstanding careers.

His artistic research focuses on the image as discourse and the theatre of animated forms. He explores integrated, hybrid, and complementary stage language that combines various artistic disciplines.

In 2001, he founded Luna Morena, Taller Experimental de Títeres, a theatre company dedicated to developing and presenting puppetry and animated forms. With his company, he has directed more than twenty works and taken part in projects and festivals in Mexico, Germany, Canada, China, the United States, Czechia, Colombia, Spain, France, Taiwan, and Scotland, in addition to collaborating with other companies and participating in international projects.

 

Charlot Lemoine (France)

Charlot Lemoine is a visual artist who, along with Tania Castaing, co-founded Vélo Théâtre in 1981. In his view, poetry is not just a form of writing; it is an approach to life and a tool for focusing attention on the invisible.

His shows draw on the poetic power of objects and the joy of manipulating them, creating a sensitive connection between the stage and the audience in order to develop a true poetry of wonder.

Since 1991, Charlot Lemoine has also been involved in running the Vélo Théâtre venue in Apt (Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur), located in a former candied fruit factory which, in 2017, was designated a Scène conventionnée pour le théâtre d’objets. The venue supports the creation of new works, research, and artists in residence, while continuing to provide space to create and perform the company’s own shows.

 

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