From my window gives birth to theatre of sound.
The project will be created through sound creation, and with it, by collecting, reusing, and working with ambient sounds, voices, music, and sound effects to bring fiction to life.
From my window will be an invitation to participate, through listening, in the process of emerging fiction, starting from what we dream at home, by expressing our imaginary journeys and extending them until we return to hear our reality differently…
A theatre creation by Delphine Salkin
as part of the European project Interphono Creative Europe 2023 – 2025:
France / Gennevilliers – Compagnie Nonumoï
Belgium / Brussels – La Tricoterie
Spain / Madrid – Teatro de La Abadía
When, why, and how do we feel ‘at home’?
And what distant places do we dream of when we find ourselves at home, especially in a neighborhood that is changing and not always of our choosing?
We asked these questions to Marcelle, Lucien, Aminata, Estelle, Ella, Nathalie, Maïssa, Djaffer, Samir, et Jean, all residents of Gennevilliers, neighbors who didn’t know each other. Their recorded testimonies were edited to create sound ‘portrait-landscapes’, blending documentary and fiction, the closeness of daily life and distant horizons. Complemented by various texts (Baudelaire, Queneau, Mona Chollet, and others), these materials are reinterpreted, embraced, and reinvented on stage by four actors. The goal: to invite the audience to ask themselves these same questions while exploring a few concrete answers, offered as indirect self-portraits.
The utopia: through these confidences—windows opened onto the intimacy of residents who may or may not resemble us—each and every one of us recognizes in ourselves what we call ‘maison‘ and discovers there a living source of our own imagination.
Which each person experiences in their own personal space: a shelter that, while protective, can also sometimes isolate. In this intimate space, we propose opening a window onto an imaginary elsewhere, offering another perspective on the world around us… This journey unfolds on multiple levels, always unified and enriched by the evocative power of sound. Here, the stage space and the sound dimension interact, feeding off each other.
The theatre creation is based on recorded interviews and workshops with the residents of the Agnettes neighborhood in Gennevilliers. Their voices, dreams, and objects interact with the professional performers on stage.
Sound, at the heart of the performance, oscillates between radio documentary and theatrical fiction. Four actors perform on stage, accompanied by a live sound installation. They reinvent the recorded testimonies of the residents (see the portraits). The sound and musical elements come to life thanks to the collaboration with Jules Wysocki, sound designer, musician, and mixer. Jules, a percussionist and composer in computer-assisted music, also works on sound mixing in cinema. He has the ability to reinvent real sounds while creating imaginary soundscapes.
What do we call home? When, why and how do we feel ‘at home’? And what other places do people dream of when they find themselves at home, especially in a changing neighbourhood in a big city? Over the course of a year, we travelled around a district of Gennevilliers and asked a dozen residents these questions: Marcelle, Lucien, Aminata, Jean, Djaffer and others, all neighbours who didn’t know they were neighbours. Using them as a starting point, we are exploring a theatre of sound, somewhere between testimonies and imaginary creations, with the voices, ambient noises, the sounds of the city, the music and landscapes of each person’s dreams. A theatre, then, where the space of the stage and that of sound enter into interference and stimulate each other. The recorded testimonies and sounds form ‘portrait landscapes’ that open up the proximity of everyday life to more than distant horizons. Supplemented by various texts, the material developed with the residents is taken up, assumed and reinvented on stage by four actors. Ten residents are also the subject of a visual and sound exhibition, accompanying the show as a prologue or extension. The aim is to invite the audience to take part, in turn, in the process of emerging fiction, to let themselves travel far away before coming back to listen in a different way to the reality that is close to us. Through these windows into the lives of people who may or may not resemble us, we may all come to recognise what we call ‘home’, and discover a living source of our own imagination.
From my window – by Delphine Salkin
Texts – extracts – By Delphine Salkin, Daniel Loayza, Olivier Cruveiller, Mona Chollet, Raymond Queneau, Charles Baudelaire, Chekhov… and contributions from ten residents of the Agnettes neighbourhood.
Stage direction, sound design and production of the sound portraits – Delphine Salkin
Assistant director – collaboration on sound design – Sami Tedeschi
Musical compositions and sound environments for the portraits – Jules Wysocki
Musical compositions – Pascale Salkin
With – Olivier Cruveiller, Delphine Salkin, Matisse Tchenquela and Sofiane Hamida-Renard
With the recorded participation of Inès Collado and the residents of Les Agnettes in Gennevilliers – Estelle, Djaffer, Lucien, Marcelle, Maïssa, Nathalie, Aminata, Jean, Ella, Samir
Lighting design – Daniel Lévy
Set design – Alwyne de Dardel
Assistant stage designer – Anna Seynave
Sound recordings of the portraits and sound postcards – Zoé Suliko, Marty No, Delphine Salkin, Sofiane Hamida-Renard, Sami Tedeschi
Direction, photos and films – Sofiane Hamida-Renard
Administration and development Nonumoï – Claudia Benítez
Actress, director, radio creator, author
Director and actor
Actress
Actor, stage manager, photographer
Radio producer, sound creator, videographer
Composer, mixer, sound designer
Set designer - visual artist
Sound technician
Lighting designer
Sociologist, specialized in cultural policy
Translator, playwright
Various cultural venues are partners in this project
Project partners
Webdesign par - Hicham Zian @
