Collectif Malunés is a Franco-Belge circus company founded in 2009. Born from the insatiable desire of it’s members to enrich themselves artistically on stage and on the street, whilst simultaneously following a higher education programme in circus arts in Tilburg (ACaPA). Four young artists — 3 Flemish, and one French — formed this collective, overflowing with ambition and energy.
2010 saw the first tour of the street show Sens Dessus Dessous in Flanders and the Netherlands.
In 2011 it was competition prizewinner at the international street arts festival MiraMirO (in Ghent) with the Grand Prix du Jury and the Prix du Public.
In 2012, the show crossed the borders of Spain.
Then in 2013, finally having left school, the show responded to high demand and was taken under the wing of renowned agency Frans Brood Productions. The tour dates tripled and the collective continued further afield to England, France, Lithuania, Austria, but also continued to touch Belgium & the Netherlands.
In 2014 the show again had great success in Spain, England, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
In 2015, the show Sens Dessus Dessous toured for it’s last year, to leave space for the creation of a second show which begun in October of 2015, taking place under the roof of a Big-Top Tent in the colour of Bordeaux — like the beautiful archaic caravan of the companies origins.
For the new creation, the Malunés family grows and consists of Simon Bruyninckx, Juliette Correa, Arne Sabbe, Lola Devault-Sierra, Nickolas Vancorven, Luke Horley, Gabriel Larès, Arjan Hendrickx, Alex et Laetitia Chrome, Melinda Mouslim, Emma Auzanneau, Dominique Bettenfeld, Claude Couffin, Charlotte Peyskens, Charlotte Duchamp, Micheline Bruyninckx.
The desire is to create a second show: rich, fresh, honest, touching, funny, absurd and delicate.
Alex
Melinda, Fairy of finery and metamorphoses, with the glint of a needle and flurry of thread she will render you unrecognisableWe are interested in researching the falls, the failures, and the indispensable elements of security (using safety ropes and landing mats), as equally in our technical research as our working methodology. All this without excluding the necessity of solidarity and the working habits of a familial group; an emphasis on the collective force.
The idea is to create a collective art and a shared experience. A risky price: honest, physical and real. The circus, and above all the nomadic circus (given the presence of the tent), modifies the urban landscape of a city; gives a new dynamic where people can come and see a show, close to home, where all different social backgrounds intertwine and exchange.
Juliette Correa, , French with Argentinian origins. Trapezist, flyer on the aerial cradle,
dancer. She graduated from ACaPA in 2012. She has created and toured the show Sens
Dessus Dessous since 2010 with Collective Malunés.
This Riding Hood makes you believe she leads the commissions, gold in her
basket: booze, water of life, wine, but not sausage.
Lola Devault-Sierra. Flyer in Hand-to-hand, banquine, aerial cralde & korean. She studied in ACaPA and then graduated from l’Ecole Supérieure des Arts du Cirque de Bruxelles (ESAC) in 2013 with Nickolas Van Corven. She has worked with the Choreographer Pia Meuthen (Panama Pictures) to create the show Ergens; Dichtbij, played in numerous festivals (Poland, Spain, China…) She joined the company Hors Pistes for the creation of Travelling Circus.
Beware ye, the sorceress, small but maleficent, who bewitches men and walks over them with an evil laugh.
Nickolas Van Corven, could be Flemish, but is completely French. Base in
hand-to-hand, banquine, flyer on the teeterboard. He studied in ACaPA and then l’ESAC, graduated in 2013 with Lola. He has worked with the coreograopher Pia Meuthen
(Panama Pictures) to create the show Ergens; Dichtbij, and also played in Go tell the
women, with the same company. He joined Hors Pistes company for the creation of
Travelling Circus.
Vile miscreant, that he is. Appearing only at night, we see this ogre carrying
three men on a plate, and placing them delicately, yet menacingly around a
freshly uncorked bottle
Luke Horley Luke Horley, an English gentlemen, always polite and smiling, and sometimes moustached. He studied theatre at Rose Bruford College, then Circus Space in London and finally ACaPA. Catcher in the Aerial Cradle, Banquine, actor. He created and played in the shows Not Until We Are Lost, with Ockham’s Razor, and Halalli, ou la Cinquième de
Beethov, with Les Philébulistes
Here is a veritable giant who can grind bones with his wrist. Known far and wide by the legends that pre-cede him wherein he catches his victims and suspends them by their toes.
Arne Sabbe, deuxième flamand de la compagnie. Voltigeur à la bascule, en main à main, banquine, cadre aérien et coréen, acrobate au sol. Il a été formé à ACaPA, puis au CNAC, diplomé en 2012. Il commence à travailler avec Luke Horley lors de la création du spectacle Hallali. Il joue dans Sens Dessus Dessous avec les Malunés jusqu’en 2013.
This is an ungrateful one. Unsatisfied with his size, he dons his magical boots in order to jump and peep, up through the windows of the tallest towers, where the beautiful damsels are changing their attire
Simon Bruyninckx, by another name, could not be Flemish. Base in hand-to-hand, banquine, flyer on the teeterboard. He was educated at the Academy for Circus and Performance Art (ACaPA, Tilburg, Holland) and at the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (CNAC, Châlons-en-champagne), from where he graduated in 2012 with Arne Sabbe. He as worked with Balagans (Festival de Monte Carlo, le Cirque du Soleil), Planche A4 (Young Stage). He is a founder of Collective Malunés with Juliette Correa, Arne Sabbe, and Vincent Bruyninckx with which they created their first show Sens Dessus Dessous in 2010.
This man is a tamer of dragons. He raises them and uses them to
scare the population, or to lock up the brave in the highest dungeons.
Gabriel Larès
Gaby, this cunning minstrel is capable of the worst kinds of incantations, he boasts of seducing the most distinguished of damsels into his bed by the lofty airs of his dulcet aubades
Alex Chrome, Technical director
Alex, , there is no grain of knowledge that escapes this wizard of forgery. Master of machines and big tops, he is more loveable with metal than the softest of babes.
Arjan Hendrickx, Light technician
More than a trick in his bag and more than a life lived, genie of darkness and light, we see or are blinded, according to his goodwill.
Eugénie Fraigneau Administration
Is the godmother, the fairy, the magician. Few people possess such knowledge as her, and a wealth of treasures lay meticulously in the drawers of her mind
Anne-Agathe, Tour manager
She is the eye, the brain. Master of time and space, with a click of his fingers; everything in it’s rightful place. Our guide, our compass, our wizard of the stage
Laetitia Chrome, Stage manager
Charlotte Duchamps, President FR
Micheline Bruyninckx, President BE
A circus show, under a big-top; nomadic, like the good old times. Fairy-tales will accompany us, cradle us, and haunt us. We will grind them up, transform them, caress them, dream into them, adapt them, revisit them and twist them throughout the creation, to extract a contemporary renovation.
A show where we lay ourselves bare, in order to create a circus without pretension. We don’t want to hide our fragility, our intimacy, our mistakes. A circus which goes beyond technique, which touches the audience because they identify with the artists, with their vulnerability, their humanity.
Once upon a time, little red riding hood was fed up and wanted a change of scenery. And so it was
that she swung open the doors of the local pub around the corner for a quick pint, and in doing so saw
a sight laid out before her that made her eyes open wide in astonishment:
There-within she found an ogre toasting with the Big Bad Wolf, the Prince Charming flirting with the
Witch, Puss in boots playing cards with Sleeping Beauty, and Blue Beard educating Tom Thumb in the
art of arm-wrestling.
The Proposition
Our overarching theme will be Fairy-Tales, revisited. These Tales, being archetypal and recognisable, allow the public to enter into their world with ease. With this as our starting point we give ourselves free licence to embark on a reconfiguration, a revisiting, of these Tales; allowing us to surprise the audience as we twist and distort these classical stories and propose a new reading of their messages and characters.
The princess stuffing her face with Mars Bars. The prince snogging the big bad wolf. Little Red
Riding Hood with a basket of bottles of red on her arm and a pack of Marlboro lights in hand.
It is the parallel between the fictive characters of the tales and the physical reality of circus that interests us. This reality, which is inherent to circus, is something enviable to the artistic domain. Acrobatics? we do it. A somersault! it’s real, it’s true, we cannot fake it.
Many of the themes found in fairy-tales have a resonance for the people of our time. These thematics are often seen in black and white:
The image of the misogynistic man, of the female object, the stigmatism of the classes, the
dichotomy of good and evil, right and wrong.
We want to exploit these subjects, both ancient and contemporary, to delve deeper into the characters and their stories; keeping the soul of the original fairy-tales, often cruel and perverse, in order to to underline these issues.
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Subsidies Vlaamse Overheid (BE)
Subsidies Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - DGCA (FR)
Subsidies Region Poitou-Charentes (FR)
Coproduction & Residency Theater op de Markt - Dommelhof (BE)
Coproduction & Residency PERPLX (BE)
Coproduction & Residency A4 (FR)
Coproduction & Residency Trasversales (FR)
Coproduction & Residency Circa (FR)
Residency Circus Centrum (BE)
Residency CREAC Bègles (FR)
Residency Atelier Archaos (FR)
Funding Les Arts Scéniques (BE)
Crowdfunding (KissKissBankBank and Circolito) (BE) (FR) (UK) (NL) (DE)
With help from Cirque Gones (FR), DOK (BE), Le Sirque - Nexon (FR), Cirque en scéne (FR), Circolito (BE), Seachangearts (UK), Bastid'Art (FR), Agora - Boulazac (FR)