Category: Uncategorized

From Friday 25 to Sunday 27 October 2024, Toulouse city centre will play host to a new urban opera by Compagnie La Machine: Le Gardien du Temple – La Porte des Ténèbres.

Following on from the 1st episode of the urban opera Le Gardien du Temple in 2018, the streets of Toulouse will once again be the setting for a major street show devised by the Compagnie La Machine and organised by Toulouse Métropole in October 2024.

Conceived by François Delaroziere and Compagnie La Machine, this monumental show follows on from the 1st part of Le Gardien du Temple, which was held in Toulouse over 4 days in November 2018.

This entirely free event will see the return of Asterion the Minotaur and Ariane the Great Spider, who will be joined on their journey by a new Machine: Lilith, the Guardian of Darkness.

From Friday 25 to Sunday 27 October 2024 – In the street of Toulouse City center –  Free
More informations +  

“Street art is the art of the unexpected.”
From 10 February 2024 at the Halle de La Machine in Toulouse, “Snow, Wind & Fire” will surprise spectators who will enjoy an unexpected experience, at the heart of the special effects of the shows put on by Compagnie La Machine.

From Saturday 10th  of February 2024, strange meteorological phenomena will converge at the Halle de La Machine in Toulouse. “Snow, Wind and Fire” will challenge visitors’ senses and surround them to create a 360-degree scene. Whether conceived with simple material or requiring complex machinery, these effects all have the same aim: to let the unexpected creep into reality. And while the surprise may be fleeting, the machine will immortalise the moment by photographing visitors’ amazement. Every participant will be able to take away a snapshot of their sensory experience. And all the better if the image is a little out of focus…

So make yourself (more or less) comfortable in front of our effects machines, brave the storms, face the flames, get lost in a whirlwind of snow and let yourself be surprised by the magic of the effects.

From 10 February – Halle de La Machine, Toulouse
Open Tuesday to Sunday – 10 am to 6 pm
More inforamtions : halledelamachine.fr

La Compagnie La Machine wishes you a happy new year 2024, full of new encounters and gatherings.
From 25 to 27 October 2024, La Machine will be back in Toulouse to present the second opus of the show «Le Gardien du Temple» by François Delaroziere.
We invite you to come and see this rare and exceptional show in the streets this autumn of 2024.

From 7 to 9 September 2023, Barbara and her two companions, Félix and Giacomo, will be back in the heart of the town of Esch-sur-Alzette in Luxembourg, to celebrate the metamorphosis of the town and its inhabitants with a Grand Bal!

The La Machine company and Pierre De Mecquenem’s team are returning to Esch-sur-Alzette to develop the second phase of Barbara’s project, with the common unifying element of storytelling in the Esch region. La Nuit de la Culture, in partnership with La Compagnie la Machine, and the hundreds of participants in the project invite you to a gigantic village festival where folklore and the imaginary blend with the industrial identity of the Terres Rouges region.

The programme for the three days includes an “animal camp” set up on Thursday in the heart of the city, where you can meet up, make things together and enjoy a unique experience based around the project. On Friday, the three giant puppets will then invite the people of Esch and beyond to light up the rue de l’Alzette together in a “Grande Parade” with a magical, fiery atmosphere all the way to “Barbara’s Village”, where the festivities will last until Saturday evening: A fair, puppet shows, play areas, music, cookery workshops, concerts, a dance floor under the stars and a fair worthy of the best popular festivals – that’s what’s in store for spectators on a day full of colour … and human warmth! . and a lot of human warmth!

From 7th to 9th of september 2023 – From 10:00 am to 00 h 30 pm – Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
All pratical informations here +

From 4 to 7 May 2023, the company La Machine presents Symphonie Mécanique orchestrated by Mino Malan and directed by François Delaroziere. A sonic and poetic immersion in the company’s mechanical universe.

La Symphonie Mécanique : The show
The spectator is invited to visit a symphony workshop and while he expects to listen to a classical concert, everything changes. He finds himself embarked on a journey where something else is playing. The workshop becomes a stage and the spectator is immersed in a flood of images and sounds that spring up from all sides. By moving around, the spectator creates his own “mix”. The sound of the flute casserole supported by the violins follows the xylo-coudre when suddenly behind it, the flip-flop organ improvises with a brass section. Suddenly the sound of the robot bass resounds, the paletoflames warm the skin, the Symphony begins its first bars. The magic happens…

Before the show, the builders will create new instruments in front of the audience and a musical workshop with Mino Malan are presented.

——————————————————–
Construction workshop – from 11 to 30 April 2023
Symphonic Lab – from 18 to 28 April 2023
La Symphonie Mécanique – From 4 to 7 May 2023
at the Halle de La Machine in Toulouse
Infos and reservations halledelamachine.fr 

From 4 February, discover the exhibition “Dans les cartons” in which more than a hundred sketches by François Delaroziere are unveiled inside and outside the Halle de La Machine à Toulouse.

While browsing the exhibition, visitors will discover eight major themes that run through the artist’s work, from the animal and plant kingdom to the fairground arts and architecture. Among these sketches, several are at the origin of the great machines known to the general public, such as Grand Éléphant de Nantes, Long Ma, le cheval-dragon, built for Peking or the Dragon de Calais. Other sketches, however, are completely unpublished and have never been presented to the public.  These drawings exist for themselves, outside of spectacular production. They are a sensitive language. A concrete trace of the imagination and the ability of this contemporary artist to make analogies between nature, drawing and mechanics.  A virtuosity that is reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s work, which is as plethoric as it is eclectic.

In imagining this exhibition, François Delaroziere wanted to integrate painting machines in order to put the visitor in motion by integrating him into the creative process. Five new machines will thus join the mechanical bestiary of the Halle de La Machine: the painting machine, the catapult, the pointillist, the machine for drawing with the wind and the calligraphy machine. Five machines that will allow visitors to create a work of art, collective or individual, but in any case, unique.

Exhibition from 4 of february to 30 august 2023
Halle de La Machine – Toulouse
More informations : halledelamachine.fr

As the second week of the Hellfest festival gets underway, Ben Barbaud, Director of Hellfest Productions and François Delaroziere, Artistic Director of La Compagnie La Machine have unveiled their future project for Clisson: La Gardienne des Ténèbres. In 2024, this 10-metre high chimera will inhabit the festival grounds, which over the years have become a real place for the inhabitants of Clisson, fans of the festival and visitors.

A real urban project, the entrance to the Hellfest festival will be remodelled into a pedestrian square pedestrian forecourt that will also host the Porte des Ténèbres, the lair of the Guardian, a children’s playground and the HellCity brewery.

La Gardienne des Ténèbres (The Guardian of Darkness)
La Gardienne des Ténèbres is the centrepiece of this project. It is both a performance machine and a city machine capable of transporting people. It is a real moving architecture that offers a different view of the public space. This original chimera is a cerberus that controls the passage between our world and the world of hell. Her brown-skinned female bust surmounts the abdomen of a scorpion.

Made of wood and steel, she moves on eight legs, adopting a gait between a crab and a spider. All its limbs are articulated. Its head and chest swivel, tilt, swing from right to left and up and down. Its mouth and stinger spit fire, water in various forms and smoke. It can bite. Its eyes, eyelids and tongue contribute to its expressiveness. Its prehensile hands allow it to grasp various objects. It can walk, run, rears up, lie down to come to the height of the public or slip under urban furniture such as bridges or tram lines.

Numerous scars, scarifications and esoteric symbols mark her body, like the stigmata of a rich and eventful past life. Its steel skeleton is set in motion by numerous hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders and automated electric motors. A load-bearing chassis ensures its steering, propulsion and lifting. An on-board sound system allows music to be played and the screams and yelps of the Guardian to be heard. Reaching a height of 10 metres, the Guardian of Darkness will be able to carry 25 people. Construction will begin this summer in the workshops of the company La Machine in Nantes and will be completed in June 2024, for the festival.

The Great Blue Heron will be the centrepiece of the Heron Tree that will be built in a few years in Nantes. The pair of waders nest at the top of the tree on platforms 35 m high. The largest of the herons is carried by a special handling arm that ensures the overall movement. It regularly takes off, carrying 18 passengers for a circular flight at a height of 40 metres, lasting about 4 minutes, with a breathtaking view of the city in transformation and the Loire. When it takes off, its wings spread out over a 16-metre wingspan covering the passengers in the gondolas. A pilot installed in a gondola manipulates the bird’s head, giving it life and expression.

The technical constraints on this project are significant, starting with the number and complexity of the Heron’s movements. The neck, the head, the eyes, the spread of the wings, each element of the machine reproduces the attitudes of the Heron in flight to recreate a natural wing beat. At the heart of the artistic
artistic approach, movement is interpreted as a language, a source of emotion. The stage of setting in motion constitutes a key stage of the construction.
In addition, the size of the Heron, the altitude at which it will be placed and the weather conditions to which it will be exposed, in particular strong exposure to the wind, also constitute strong constraints. Materials and designs are designed accordingly. The unit must be able to withstand winds of up to 26m/s (95km/h). However, during the course of the studies, it became apparent that it was impossible to validate the load drop calculations
of the Tree’s structure, and therefore of its solidity and safety, without knowing the reactions of this welded structure to the circular flight of a 30-tonne heron with its arm and counterweight. It was therefore necessary to build this heron and then fly it at ground level.

Since the summer of 2021, the Heron has been tested at sight on the Parc des Chantiers, next to the Nave of the Ile de Nantes. The manufacturers were thus able to set the Heron and its carrier arm in motion. These visual tests made it possible to record the data from this flight, to validate the calculations and to define the operating conditions.