The DONNE Collective
The Collectif DONNE takes contemporary writing and composes its own.
Spurred on by Margaux Loire, opera singer and actress, Leslie Gruel, director and actress, and Amélie Charbonnier, actress and dancer, the group was formed in 2020.
“We're passionate about our work, and we're determined to realise an ambitious dream - to co-write our own production.
The intertwining of our sister-arts - singing, writing, acting and dancing - generates a common vocabulary. As we speak the same language and refine the rules of our game, we become self-sufficient.”
Manifesto of the collective
Let's exist as a collective : it's our political act
Let's shape a horizontal model
Let's generate a way of living together
Let's make our relationships conducive to creation
Let's mix our sister arts
Let's inspire each other through porosity
Let's reverse and upset the balance of power
Let's create a safe space for creation
Let's take risks, Let's take
the challenges - creation, the collective, the other, ourselves -
And let's overcome them together
Let's allow ourselves great freedom because we've got your back
Let's raise the still-stifled voices
Let's stand shoulder to shoulder in the madness of the world
Let's compose our language
Let's take our place
Let's leave our mark
“We are passionate, relentless dreamers with an ambitious dream — to co-write our staging.”
The DONNE Collective is structurally hosted within the Collectif 2 Plus and is supported by the Ateliers Médicis, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of National Education.
Creations
Rêves de toute une terre is the result of a year's residency as part of the Ateliers Médicis' Création en Cours creation and transmission grant (2020-2021), which saw the light of day in July 2021 at the verger aux hirondelles in Luché-Pringé, Sarthe.
Today, the Collectif DONNE is in the production and creation phase of La Ville Ouverte, a dramatic poem by Samuel Gallet.
At the same time, the Collectif is working on a recital of the opera Madone et Putain, based on the relationship between prostitution and religion. A first production of this recital was presented to the public in 2024 at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, on the occasion of Margaux Loire's master's degree. Research into the repertoire, as well as dramaturgical, lyrical and choreographic writing, will continue throughout the 24-25 season.
Chair Vive
Download the booklet (PDF)Chair Vive is the result of a six-handed writing.
Extract from the booklet
Lui — Ô donnez-moi dès maintenant l’illusion d’un ciel sorti des enfers
Eta & Macha — Chanté comme une prière dangereuse
— Ça va coûter cher… Une nuit entière de fantasmagoriques plaisirs …
— Et promis sur ta peau tu en garderas la trace.
— Enivres-toi, Perds-toi, Noies-toi
Ensemble — Je me mélange, pour l’éternité de quelques billets
Lui — Sexez-moi
Ensemble — La chaleur de vos corps me mord
Transmission
In the place of our collective, each art-sister is brought by one of us.
At the point of creation, each sister-art is embraced by each of us.
When it comes to transmission, the art-sisters coexist in a myriad of keys.
Our workshops are divided into four areas: theatre, singing, dance and writing.
From the dialogue between these disciplines emerges a multitude of proposals that allow everyone to identify with and experiment with self-expression. We teach them and work with them to create the rules of the game, which, once they've learnt them, enable them to become more independent and refine their demands, so that they can put on a show. Then we let ourselves be amazed and moved by their poetry, their flashes of genius and their desires.
For the Ateliers Médicis, we transposed the dramaturgy of La Ville Ouverte and wrote the show Rêves de toute une Terre with a children's choir, which provides some answers to the question: How can children, starting from their realities, emancipate themselves through dreams, live a shared adventure and invent a new way of living together?