Est-ce un oiseau?

Musical theater — A performance freely inspired by the Brancusi vs. the USA trial asking the eternal question : What is art?

An astonishing mix of theatre, music, poetry and plastic questionings.

On stage, two actors and singers and three musicians. Five strong personalities in both artistic expression and stage presence, sharing with the audience the dramatized extracts from the trial and the questions that arise from it in a tasty cocktail of jazz, poetry, electro, rock and song...

"October 1926. The Paris docks in New York. On board were nineteen sculptures by Constantin Brancusi for the Brummer Gallery, including The Bird in Space, an oblong object measuring one and a half metres. The American customs officials were formal : this was not a work of art; this 'bird' was not a work of art; it was categorized under 'kitchen utensils and hospital equipment'; Brancusi had to pay a tax of four thousand dollars. The lawsuit that the artist filed against the United States was the basis of this performance. The American courts ruled in Brancusi's favour. But it is also a question of a vast debate between the Ancients and the Moderns, i.e. between so-called "classical" and "modern" art. What is art? That is the question. This performance - sometimes referred to as a happening - consists of replicas of the trial, but also of other texts and original creations (verbal, musical). Music is questioned: suddenly a pop-song is transformed into the rhythm of a mechanical clock... Beware: this performance is essentially ironic. The customs officer's point of view is legitimate. What would Phidias have thought of a pile of Brillo Boxes in a room of the MOMA in New York? " Thierry Devillers

Est-ce un oiseau? was created in 2014, during the Arts & Metals exhibition of the Province of Liege at the Château de Jehay.

This fifty-minute performance can be inspired by the context in which it is performed (venue, current events, theme, etc.) and can adapt its content, as it was the case at Bozar - Brussels in November 2019, when it was performed as part of Europalia Romania : texts by Romanian artists who have left their mark on European thought and culture naturally found their place in the performance.

It can be performed on stage, in an exhibition space or in a school environment. The main languages used are French and English.