Face Aux Murs - Cie Hors Surface

An exhilarating acrobatic trampoline performance, Face Aux Murs (Facing the Walls) explores the dynamics of human relationships in a world of perpetual flux.

Damien Droin plunges into the heart of an inner rebellion, recounting the moments of vertigo and doubt he experiences in his interactions with others and with himself. Yet, this narrative is optimistic, exploring humanity's capacity to adapt, transcend limitations, begin again, and reinvent itself.

For every wall built, a ladder can be fashioned. For every fall, a flight can be dreamed. Six solitary acrobats find themselves on a vertiginous Plexiglas wall surrounded by two trampolines. Alternately witnessing and participating in their desires and doubts, each character explores their shadow self and buried courage. The courage to give up? The courage to continue? In a constantly transforming setting, each character's world shifts unexpectedly.

Beyond its striking aesthetic, the acrobatic scenography allows us to delve into the intimate struggles and shared challenges we all face. Immense and insurmountable, a wall on stage separates people, ideas, and spaces. Only one side is visible, the other remaining open to the imagination. Falls and flights become metaphors for a world to which we must not adapt, but which we can make our own. For how can we build a society when exclusion and individualism have become the norm? This play unveils a kaleidoscopic story where the human body becomes a space of freedom and where relationships with others often prove to be the only comfort against the call of the void.

Co-producers and/or residency partners:

Archaos PNC, Théâtres en Dracénie - Scène conventionnée, AGORA PNC Boulazac-Nouvelle Aquitaine, Le Carré Sainte Maxime, Le Vellein scènes de la CAPI – Isère, Pôle Arts de la Scène – Friche la Belle de Mai, La Scala Provence and Paris, Scène Nationale Les Salins, PNC La Brèche, Liberté Scène Nationale, Maillon Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scène européenne

Partners:

Ministry of Culture / Sud Region / Var Department / TPM Metropolitan Area / City of Toulon

Compagnie Hors Surface

Cie Hors Surface is a Toulon-based circus company that has been championing a new, multifaceted, and highly demanding acrobatic style since 2011. Poetic and visual, this company, directed by Damien Droin, develops extraordinary stage designs and asserts a unique language that blends original musical composition with high-flying choreography. Damien creates imaginary universes, mental spaces, and parallel worlds that draw their strength from reality. Our artistic vision: to question space in flux, our relationship to reality. A multifaceted circus, whose originality lies in the creation of imaginary worlds. The company continues its search for an original artistic language where the question of movement interrogates that of space. Damien is passionate about stage design, and it was during his studies at the CNAC (National Center for Circus Arts) that he invented the Acronet: a 60 m² stretched canvas made from a fishing net, serving as a trampoline. This innovative apparatus has since been revisited and evolves in each new show by the company.

Damien Droin (Author and Director)

Damien Droin trained at the National Center for Circus Arts in 2009, where he developed a large suspended trampoline he named Acronet, which he then combined with tightrope walking, creating a space conducive to transforming the body between balance and flight. In 2010, he founded ie Hors Surface. Simultaneously, he has collaborated on several projects, notably with Mario Martone at La Scala in Milan for the opera Pagliacci, and with the writer and director Fabrice Melquiot, with whom he continues to collaborate today. To date, he has produced and directed eight pieces, blurring the lines between circus and dance. Since 2015, Damien has been developing international projects in Brazil, Guinea, and South Korea. He also created Trampoville in 2022, a project in which he choreographed around twenty circus artists and high-level athletes within an extraordinary set design. He also performs on stage in his latest creation, Face aux Murs.

Matthieu Tomi (Composer)

A musician, composer, and arranger, he is a bassist and double bassist in various groups. He has played with Watcha Clan (Electro-World), Nasser Ben Dadoo, and Saïko Nata, and composed and performed the album Duo Impressionniste with harpist Katell Boisneau. He has also contributed to documentaries, films, and commercials, notably for France 3 and Arte. Since 2014, he has been a composer and performer with several circus companies: Cie s'évapore, Mauvais Coton, Archaos, Mines de Rien, Cie Azeïn, Cahin-Caha, Cie Jupon, and Cie Hors Surface. In 2023, he and Nasser Ben Dadoo reached the finals of the International Blues Challenge. In 2024, he began a collaboration with Diogo Santos to compose the music for the show Pondus (Portugal). He also worked as musical director for Cie Hors Surface for the arrival of the Olympic flame at Mont Saint-Michel. Alongside his studio and stage activities, he became a bass teacher at the Yamaha school in 2001.

Caillou MV (Lighting Design)

Caillou Michael Varlet designs and creates video mappings, digital scenography, interactive installations, and immersive projections. His work encompasses video, photography, 3D, graphic design, motion design, lighting, and all forms of intersection between art and technology. Specializing in visual arts and digital scenography, Caillou MV founded the company EnLight: "digital art at the service of humanity and the environment," a digital creation studio developing unique projects at the crossroads of practices and audiences, where technology gives way to a visual poetics. He uses innovative technologies to redesign and re-examine public spaces, the relationship to space, and the role of the artist.

Aline Tyranowicz (Lighting Design)

Trained in 2004 in lighting design for live performance at the University of Aix-en-Provence, she has since continued to play with light, its shadows, and reflections in fields as varied as architecture, theatrical staging, dance performances, street theater, and contemporary circus. In close collaboration with Damien Droin since 2018, she has created the lighting designs for the shows Open Cage, Entredeux-Mondes, and now Face Aux Murs.

Kob (Stage Builder and Manager)

Originally a circus artist in Savoie, Kob specializes in technical design for live arts. For years, Kob has followed Damien in his most ambitious scenographic ideas, creating unique acrobatic structures (Le poids des Nuages, Envol, and Face Aux Murs).

Alice Rende (Movement Research and Dramaturg)

After studying at the National Circus School of Brazil and obtaining a Master's degree in Performing Arts from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Alice Rende pursued the professional training offered by the Higher School of Circus Arts of Toulouse Occitanie, ESACTO'Lido. In 2019, she began her first creation, Passages. Currently, she is conducting doctoral research on vertigo on stage and working on her solo piece, Fora. For this solo, she received the SACD's Processus Cirque Prize in 2022 and was a laureate of Circus Next in 2023.

Léo Grosperrin (Lighting Design Assistant)

After completing a two-year university diploma in Performing Arts in Aix-en-Provence, he specialized in Stage Management and spent two seasons as a trainee technician at the Théâtre A. Vitez within the Faculty of Arts. Since 2009, he has worked as an electrician across several theaters in Aix and Marseille, as well as at the Aix-en-Provence International Festival of Lyric Art, where he participated in ten consecutive editions. Since then, he has created numerous lighting designs with companies such as L’Arpenteur, La Souricière, La Zampa, Elephante, the Collectif Eudaimonia, and with Vincent Macaigne.

Author, Director: Damien Droin

Musical Composition: Matthieu Tomi

Set Design: Damien Droin

Stage Manager: Simon Drouart

Set Builder and Stage Manager: Kob

Lighting Design: Aline Tyranowicz and Léo Grosperrin

Video Design: Caillou

Costume Design: Suan Czepczynski

Movement Research: Alice Rende

Sound and Video Technician: Pauline Parneix

Production Manager: Bérénice Vivès