OPENING NIGHT
- Saturday 28 March at 7.30pm
- At l'Entre-Pont (Le 109)
- Suitable for all ages 8 and over
- Free, public 2026 membership at l'Entre-Pont (€3)
- Duration: 2 hours
The Théâtre de la Massue and Puppet Games are delighted to invite you to the opening of the second FORMA festival.
For this 29e edition of the Apéro DésAstres… Make way for cabaret!
An ephemeral, joyously undisciplined evening, where stars of the puppetry sky, shards of objects, animated materials, images, gestures and unexpected appearances meet. On stage, the artists of the En-Jeux de la Marionnette collective from Nice, accompanied by their accomplices and guests from the festival.
The performances will continue with a DJ set and video performance by Katia Vonna.
Come and celebrate our evening of short, free, sometimes fragile or explosive forms. A moment when (Des)Astres will be performed only once!
Free admission without reservation
SHOWS
My ball
Gorgomar Company
- Saturday 28 March at 10.30 a.m.
- At the Forum Jacques Prévert, Salle Juliette Gréco
- Young audience from 2 years
- Price: from €6 to €10
- Duration: 25 minutes
Little Red Riding Hood is very proud: her mum has given her a pretty red balloon.. The little girl hurried to show it to her grandmother. She wanders off into the forest and sings happily: «Let's go for a walk in the woods». She successively meets a lion, an elephant, a giraffe, a rhinoceros, a crocodile and pink flamingos. Six unexpected encounters later, and six more rhymes, Little Red Riding Hood finally meets the Big Bad Wolf. Adapted from the album by Mario Ramos, My ball is a gentle show to see with your childrens.
La Gorgomar Company was founded by artists Aurélie Péglion and Thomas Garcia over 15 years ago, and is based at 109, Pôle de Cultures Contemporaines, in Nice. Through their artistic and human encounters and their own personal favourites, they bring together creators from the worlds of theatre, circus, classical music and visual arts to create a resolutely joyful band of «Swiss Army knives»!
Acting: Fanny Tissot Giordana and Aurélie Péglion - Music: Thomas Garcia - With the support of the Ministère de la Culture - DRAC Paca, the Région Sud PACA, the Département des Alpes-Maritimes and the Ville de Nice.
Dust
Cie Golden Delicious and Cie Wilde & Vogel
- Mardi 31 mars à 14h (scolaires ouvertes au public) et à 20h (tout public)
- At l'Entre-Pont (Le 109)
- General public aged 14 and over
- Price: €14 to €16 (for school performances: €14 for the general public - €6 for schools)
- Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes
How did I become like this? Who am I? Who are the others? How did it all come together? Could our grandparents have met in Europe? Four artists from different disciplines, two Israeli and two German, come together to tell stories. Drawing on personal memories, family stories and dreams, they highlight moments that we all share and others that set us apart. Object theatre, movement and text are staged and interspersed with music and song. A moment that cancels out time and space, links the big bang and the black holes in our collective and individual history(ies) and brings the now back into it..
For the room DUST, Three internationally renowned companies are exploring the forms and languages of theatre. The German company Wilde & Vogel, founded in 1997 by Charlotte Wilde and Michael Vogel, develops a visual theatre of puppets and live music. They are also co-founders of the Westflügel International Centre for Visual Theatre in Leipzig. The company Golden Delicious, based in Nice and directed by multidisciplinary artist Inbal Yomtovian, works in the field of theatre and performance, drawing its stories from all the forms of everyday life. Ari Teperberg, a director, dancer and teacher based in the Netherlands, explores voice, silence and forms of human communication in his artistic research.
Acting: Ari Teperberg, Michael Vogel, Inbal Yomtovian, Charlotte Wilde · Figures: Michael Vogel · Dramaturgy: Jonas Klinkenberg · Directed by: Antonia Christl, Hendrik Mannes · Coproduction: FITZ Stuttgart, Westflügel Leipzig. · With the support of the City of Leipzig, the Fonds Darstellende Künste and the Kulturstiftung des Freistaats Sachsen, Scène 55, the Mairie de Beausoleil and Point Fixe.
Spectacle soutenu par la DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Arsud et la Région Sud.
Byba Youv, the witch who dreamed of being a goat
Cie DERAÏDENZ
- Tuesday 31 March at 9.30 am and 2 pm (schools open to the public) & Wednesday 1 April at 2.30 pm (general public)
- At the Francis Gag Theatre
- General public - Family-friendly
- Price: €8 (for school performances: €8.3 for the general public - €6 for schools)
- Running time: 35min
La DERAÏDENZ Company challenges brave children: come and meet Byba Youv, the most scriboudeleuze Zelementique Witch in history! They will no doubt learn why she spends all her energy trying to turn herself into a goat, to no avail.
Byba Youv's house is a witch's house as you regularly see them, an asylum for lost and forgotten objects, a home for charlatans, a flat-share for little mice.
Byba Youv is all about magic, puppets and singing, so hold on tight, we're taking off on the Byba Youv broom!
DERAÏDENZ DERAÏDENZ develops a unique, strange and striking universe, composing atmospheres, seeking deep emotion and taming mystery with aesthetic distance, joyful derision and poetry. DERAÏDENZ tends towards total creation for the stage and the street, from scenic writing to musical composition, via set construction, costume making, puppet creation, company life, training, short films, and the rest... with the awareness of moving forward in a world in ruins! The Company was founded in 2017 and is co-directed by Léa Guillec, Baptiste Zsilina and Coline Agard. Since 2020, it has been based at the Pôle Théâtre et Marionnette in Avignon.
Author : Charles Segard-Noirclère · Directed by Léa Guillec and Baptiste Zsilina · Game: Léa Guillec · Costumes: Baptiste Zsilina and Sarah Rieu · Puppet construction, set design, music: Baptiste Zsilina · Lighting design: Loris Lallouette · Production: Cie DERAÏDENZ · Partners: Ville d'Avignon, département du Vaucluse, Théâtre Transversal (84), Pôle Théâtre et Marionnette (84)
DayDream
Théâtre de la Massue - Ézéquiel Garcia-Romeu company
- Wednesday 1 April at 3pm (open to Leisure Centres) and 4pm
- At l'Entre-Pont (Le 109)
- Young audience from 3 years
- Price: €10 (€6 for Leisure Centres)
- Duration: 30min
Who remembers his birth? Who remembers the warmth of your mother's arms as you meet her for the first time? Who remembers their first dreams, their first thoughts, their first fevers?
Combining live performance, paper theatre, objects, shadows and light, DayDream draws up a a poetic ode to childhood, first times and the (re)discovery of one's inner self. emotions. The first memories emerge in a trickle of light to bring to life the landscapes, characters and emotions of childhood, for the time of a dreamlike and fantastic stroll.
Le Théâtre de la Massue is a contemporary puppet company founded in 1985. It explores contemporary forms of puppetry and new stage writing. Its works are conceived as a paradigm within a creative theatrical laboratory. Lucille Delbecque is the company's first play for young audiences.
Original idea, design, writing, paper creation, acting & manipulation: Lucille Delbecque - Dramaturgy, direction, lighting design: Ézéquiel Garcia-Romeu - Musical creation and sound design: Nicolas Brunet
Mythos
Anima Théâtre
- Thursday 2 April at 8pm, Friday 3 April at 2pm (schools), Friday 3 April at 8pm, Saturday 4 April at 3pm
- At the Théâtre National de Nice, Les Franciscains
- Young audience from 8 years
- Price: from €5 to €35
- Duration: 1 hour
With Mythos, Anima Théâtre takes us into a dreamlike world of puppets, video projections and shadow theatre, where mythology is juxtaposed with family history. This wordless, utterly poetic show blurs the boundaries of reality and plunges us into an impressive phantasmagorical universe. A unique theatrical experience.
In this show, Yiorgos Karakantzas examines tragedies: Greek and historical tragedies, personal and family tragedies and the tragedies of our societies today. He goes back to his childhood, marked by Greek mythology and in particular Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which his father used to read to him. Inspired by the events and people that have marked his life, he creates a journey of initiation for a little girl, lost on a dystopian island, who must find her way out of the labyrinth, following in the footsteps of the heroes, monsters and divinities of these ancient stories..
ANIMA in Latin, it means breath, spirit, soul. Dynamic dialectic. Creative impulse. The company was born with the ambition of opening up and inventing links between Everything - the artistic field - and Everyone - groups and individuals. The project is driven by the desire to create a permanent resonance between societal, artistic, scientific and human issues, rather than a formal search for a choreographic signature.
Director: Yiorgos Karakantzas - Writer: Panayotis Evangelidis - Scientific expert: Efimia Karakantza - Performers: Stéphane Miquel, Eirini Patoura, Thais Trulio - Puppet construction: Eric Deniaud - Video: Yragaël Gervais - Sound and music creation: Uriel Bartelemi with the participation of Amélie Legrand - Lighting design: Pablo Hassani - Stage manager: Yann Vote - Sound manager: Vincent Pierre-Louis - Design and production of 3D printed puppets: Fred Beroujon - Costume designer: Adèle De Keyzer - Artists associated with the creation: Fabricio Montecchi, Michaël Cros
Environment
Cie L'étendue - Renaud Herbin
- Friday 3 April at 6.30pm and 8.30pm
- At the Centre culturel La Providence
- Suitable for all ages 8 and over
- Price: €14 to €16
- Duration: 45 minutes
The puppet tells the story of the human being in what constitutes it. It explores his ability to tell us «I'm here» and to be surprised by it. In this sensitive experiment for a long-string puppet, a character evolves in a lunar setting of black graphite, exposed to the climatic variations of his environment. His wanderings in search of otherness in the face of the hostility that surrounds him are nourished by a poetics of detail. An intimacy is created that compels us to scrutinise both the figure and its manipulator, whose breath and slightest movements we watch out for. Like a Samuel Beckett story, MILIEU depicts a situation that is as funny as it is metaphysical.
By revisiting the techniques of string puppetry, Renaud Herbin has chosen to use them to create a contemporary work. Here he proposes a variation on the notion of the castelet, playing with scale and the gravity of the suspended body.
Design and performance: Renaud Herbin - Space: Mathias Baudry - Puppetry: Paulo Duarte - Sound: Morgan Daguenet - Lighting: Fanny Bruschi - Stage manager on tour: Suzon Michat - Production: L'étendue - Renaud Herbin - Coproduction: Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes de Charleville-Mézières - Created at the TJP Centre Dramatique National Strasbourg - Grand Est
Werther
Teatro Medico Ipnotico and Teatro Caverna
- Saturday 4 April at 7.30pm
- At Espace Magnan
- General public aged 14 and over
- Price: €14 to €16
- Duration: 50min
Young Werther and his suffering are part of Western history. Teatro Medico Ipnotico has taken a certain formal risk in creating a free adaptation for puppet theatre, in which the structure of the classic is transposed into a contemporary setting. In this work freely inspired by Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers by J.W. Goethe, puppets are confronted with one of their formal possibilities: the statue. A sparse, raw script, in which the characters inexorably accept their predestination, the movement of the puppets gradually cancelling each other out until they become statues.
Founded in 2009 in Parma (Italy), the Teatro Medico Ipnotico creates theatre and street performances using the language of traditional wooden puppets and the castelet. The company's creative process is based on craftsmanship, the writing of original texts, acting and collaboration with musicians. Its political commitment is to preserve the wild dimension of the work of art and the random nature of the encounter with the audience. At the heart of the «medico-hypnotic» experience is the puppet, evolving in its own autonomous, transportable space: a theatre on a reduced scale called baracca. In the dramaturgy of the shows, the aesthetics and animation of the puppet are often called into question, exploring its affinities and differences with the doll, the inanimate statue, the monument, the toy, the shadow and the character.
Teatro Caverna is both an association for social promotion and an artistic collective based in Bergamo (Italy) since 2002, active in the promotion, creation and dissemination of cultural practices, with a particular focus on the languages of contemporary theatre, the performing arts and training. Over time, it has developed a recognisable artistic identity, focused on experimentation with theatrical languages and dialogue with territories, communities and social fragilities.
Show in Italian with French surtitles
Director: Patrizio Dall'Argine - Puppet making and manipulation, set design and costumes: Patrizio Dall'Argine, Veronica Ambrosini - Sound dramaturgy and lighting design: Damiano Grasselli
TRAINING
Puppet making and animated film
Hosted by Cie DERAÏDENZ with Baptiste Zsilina, builder and animator, Coline Agard, assistant builder and animator, and Serge Gutwirth, photographer.
- Thursday 2 and Friday 3 April, 10am to 5pm
- At the Théâtre de la Massue workshop (Le 109)
- For amateurs and professionals in the performing arts
- Price: €100 to €150 for 2 days
- Duration: 12 hours
- Limité à 8 personnes
Come and try your hand at making animated puppet films!
Over two days of intensive training, you can learn to build your own characters from aluminium wire, wood, foam and mixed media, and animate them frame by frame alongside artists Baptiste Zsilina, Colline Agard and Serge Gutwirth. Everyone will be able to take away their own freshly-constructed puppets and a short puppet animation sequence.
FAMILY WORKSHOPS
A dream to create!
Shadow theatre workshop
Led by puppeteer Lucille Delbecque, Théâtre de la Massue
- Wednesday 1 April from 10am to 12pm
- At l'Entre-Pont (Le 109)
- For children aged 5-10 and parent-child groups
- Price: €10
- Duration: 2 hours
- Limited to 12 people
Come and try your hand at shadow theatre!
In this workshop, we'll discover the creative possibilities offered by shadow theatre through playful exercises: we'll make articulated paper silhouettes, learn to manipulate them on an overhead projector and with flashlights, and do improvisation exercises exploring the voice and movement of puppets.
Create your own paper puppets and bring them to life on screen like real puppeteers!
Participants can keep all their creations.
This workshop is part of the artistic itineraries for families offered by
l'Entre-Pont.
Make your own witch's nose!
Hosted by Cie DERAÏDENZ
- Wednesday 1 April from 10am to 12pm
- At the Francis Gag Theatre
- For children aged 8-12 and parent-child groups
- Price: €10
- Duration: 2h30
- Limited to 12 people
Byba Youv is putting down his broom for a few days at the TFG - you have to look like him to go unnoticed! The Compagnie DERAÏDENZ introduces apprentice puppeteers to the art of puppetry. creative plastic arts techniques to become a mysterious and... crunchy character!
Réservation par mail auprès d’Alexia Toppi : theatre.fgag@ville-nice.fr
PROJECTION
Short puppet films
Carte blanche to Baptiste Zsilina from the DERAÏDENZ company
- Wednesday 1st April at 9pm
- At La Gaya Scienza
- Suitable for all ages 10 and over
- Free
- Running time: 1h15
The DERAÏDENZ company invites you to take a plunge into the world of animated films using puppets, objects, clay and other curiosities.. The programme of short films will include Slavic productions (Czech Republic, Russia, Latvia...) and productions by the DERAÏDENZ! company. Between screenings and discussions, we'll have the pleasure of experiencing all the power, poetry and specificity of this animation technique. We'll also discuss the methods, tricks and materials used to create the magic of movement.
Witches, demons, poets and mockery will all be there!
Free admission.
ROUND TABLE
Contemporary and traditional puppets: what links them today?
Organised by the Théâtre de la Massue - Cie Ézéquiel Garcia-Romeu with the Centre de recherche en histoire des idées (CRHI), Université Côte d'Azur
- Thursday 2 April at 2.30pm
- À L'Artistique
- General public aged 15 and over
- Free
- Duration: 2h30
In her study “La Marionnette, Laboratoire du Théâtre”, Hélène Beauchamp argues for the puppet's ability to question and evolve the aesthetics of theatre: «At the end of the 19th century, all over Europe, the theatrical avant-gardes were making the puppet, hitherto anchored in declining traditions, their own. (...) We can see how the polemical energy of the puppet model explored, often before its time, the fundamental territories of the modern stage: meta-theatricality, parody, distancing, the fusion of the arts, but also the search for a metaphysical, popular and political theatre.»
Based on the issues raised by Hélène Beauchamp, we will open the debate with the artists and speakers present on the contradictory, conflicting or fluid influences that contemporary puppetry has on tradition and transposes into its different aesthetics..
Moderator: Thomas Morisset, PhD and lecturer in philosophy at the Université Côte d'Azur, member of the CRHI and the Collectif Nuée.
With the participation of :
- Francesca Di Fazio, docteure en arts du spectacle et directrice artistique adjointe du théâtre national ERT Emilia Romagna Teatri.
- Renaud Herbin, metteur en scène-marionnettiste-dramaturge, ancien directeur du TJP – Centre dramatique national de Strasbourg, directeur artistique de la compagnie L’étendue.
- Ézéquiel Garcia-Romeu, metteur en scène-scénographe-marionnettiste, directeur artistique de la compagnie Théâtre de la Massue et du Festival FORMA.
Free admission.
