TO THE BEGINNINGS

It's a place to enter in the half-light. To the ear, we perceive a crackling, mineral sound, the abundant sounds of nature. Finally, the eye adjusts to the glow of a hypnotic fire, a luminous matrix that invites discovery and contemplation. We're in a cave. Made of paper by Céline Diez, it conjures up the archaic, fantastical memory of times immemorial, that of the first epoch, our prehistory. On its night-black walls, shadows and drawings appear, come to life and vanish in the folds of the paper, recalling the primitive link between man and nature, but also with creation. Alongside projections by Clément Debailleul, a ballet of hands by ombroman Philippe Beau brings to life a variety of animal and plant figures, which follow one another and transform themselves at morphing speed. It's a veritable cinema of origins, where silhouettes are created to the rhythm of the graceful, fluid movements of intertwining fingers. Playing with shadows is a magical act of dialogue with the invisible, of re-enchanting the world and connecting with nature. This immersive and poetic experience of the night of beginnings offers the privilege of this magic.

Created in 2000, the company 14:20 founds the artistic movement of Magie nouvelle, which places the imbalance of the senses and the hijacking of reality at the heart of artistic issues. Its three founding artist-researchers, Clément Debailleul, Valentine Losseau and Raphaël Navarro, affirm magic as a language in its own right, rich in artistic creation, educational transmission and fundamental research. They are the driving force behind major innovations in the fields of object levitation and animation, human flight, holograms, connected object programming... Today, an entire generation is contributing to the vitality of this movement in some twenty countries.

Co-founder member, Clément Debailleulis committed to crossing a wide range of practices and decompartmentalizing genres, between live performance and the visual arts. Initially a stage director, he has developed skills linked to digital tools, in particular video, computer programming and spatialized sound, which enrich his creations. He designs In the beginning in collaboration with Philippe Beau and Céline Diez. Author, creator and performer, Philippe Beau is world-renowned in the art of making shadows with his hands, working with a wide range of creators. Graduated from the Arts Décoratifs de Paris, then trained in the mechanics and articulation of small machines for show business, Céline Diez creates scenographies and visual installations that play with movement and the boundaries of perception.