Story
WE CRY
In a library at night, the audience sits in two rows facing each other. The performance begins. We look around discreetly to try and identify which of the spectators are the parents, sisters and brothers of the 17 adolescents about to take the stage.
Let’s be clear: Claudel Doucet’s Que nous Soyons is a gem. Created with a class for recently arrived immigrants, the work interweaves choreography, theatre and circus. Its canvas is the library at Paul Gérin Lajoie d’Outremont high school where they study. To witness the teenagers’ anxious grace in this space – their space – is a joy. They circulate among the audience, telling us their names, and the world materializes before our eyes. They come from Moldavia, Bulgaria, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Brazil, the Philippines, Venezuela, Iran, Vietnam, South Korea, China and Ukraine. Through staging and texts, created in a writing workshop and delivered in assorted accents, they take us into their inner worlds.
“I dream of a mountain of ice cream.” “I’m afraid of losing my native language.” “I am of few words.” “I do not understand Donald Trump.” “I will become a Quebecer.” A message to Venezuela’s president: You have destroyed our freedom” is followed by the troubling statement: “Hello father, I wonder if I might come back and live with you. I miss you terribly… May I live with you?” Members of the audience cry. The dancers-acrobats Christine Daigle and Mathias Reymond gently slip into the world of the young performers, illustrating encounters, defiance and solidarity. Arad, an Iranian, began the show with this insolent statement: “In Iran, we speak of oil and poetry.” He closes the event reading a French translation of a Persian poem. The piece ends, and it is a triumph. The audience is on its feet whooping and applauding – flowers, moved parents, a beaming director, and radiant youth who bared their souls with real dignity.
That you may be, that we all may be, there with you in a library at night.
