Bella

Bella is a solitary child who grows up observing, curiously, the world. She is gripped by a spellbinding urge to fly, to defy the laws of gravity and reach the clouds. One day something strange happens: she starts to lose weight.

In the beginning, she doesn’t worry too much about it. On the contrary, she quite enjoys letting go of the high branch and gently floating down to the ground, like a leaf. What a wonderful sensation, making the most of this almost weightlessness ! But soon she becomes so light that nothing can stop the wind from whipping her up in its gusts, higher and higher, in a surreal and heady vertigo...

Where will her wandering take her? Will she ever settle back down to the ground? Bella is a timeless figure, part of the everlasting world of hope and wishes. This show speaks of the innermost thoughts of those who, at any age, find themselves living the difficult transition between one state of being and another.

"For this creation I was inspired by the new Piumadoro e Piombofino by Guido Gozzano, an Italian author from the early 20th century. This stirring tale evokes the difficulty in accepting the transformation of the body as it leaves childhood and enters adolescence. For me it contains above all a marvelous subject to handle, with the ubiquity of air and lightness in contrast with the search for weight and roots. I also explored other fairy tales which soothed my childhood and I took from them material which reflects universal imagery. (Black birds, women’s shoes...)". Marina Montefusco

• Marina Montefusco - script, direction and puppet design
• Erwan Costadau - lighting design and management
• Jean Louis Sagot and Pierre Gosselin - set design and building
• Grégory Daltin - original score
• Olivier Brousse - sound effects and recording
• Magali Esteban, Carlos Nogaledo and Sophie Weiss - three-man puppet manipulation
• Pascal Pariselle - graphic design
• Valérie Gosselin - puppet costumes
• Isa Garcia - fabric sections
• Hervé Billerit - director of production and tour manager