Adapting “Le Grand Will” in Wendake: Ex Machina and the Huron-Wendat Nation’s La Tempête

This article examines how La Tempête, a 2011 collaboration between Robert Lepage’s theatre company, Ex Machina, and the Huron-Wendat Nation on the Wendake First Nations reserve, fostered moments of productive interculturalism both on stage and off through what I have termed scenographic dramaturgy....

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Poll, Melissa
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Toronto 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/TRIC/article/view/22389
Description
Summary:This article examines how La Tempête, a 2011 collaboration between Robert Lepage’s theatre company, Ex Machina, and the Huron-Wendat Nation on the Wendake First Nations reserve, fostered moments of productive interculturalism both on stage and off through what I have termed scenographic dramaturgy. Lepage’s process of scenic re-“writing” responds to the evocative potential of individual performer bodies and a production’s given physical location to craft a postdramatic adaptation rooted in highly physical and visual performance text. This analysis draws on intercultural theory, scenographic dramaturgy, postcolonial theory, and postdramatic adaptation and includes a brief survey of Quebecois and First Nations Shakespeare productions in Canada, highlighting some of the potential traps of staging postcolonial interpretations, including power imbalances among intercultural collaborators and reductionist portrayals of difference. Ex Machina and the Huron-Wendat Nation’s ability to avoid many of these traps will be interrogated through examples illustrating how scenographic dramaturgy’s three central components—bodies in motion, architectonic scenography, and historical spatial mapping—function as both a process and product fostering progressive dialogue between cultures. En 2011, la compagnie Ex Machina de Robert Lepage s’associait à la Première Nation huronne-wendat de Wendake pour une production de La Tempête. Cet article examine comment cette collaboration a donné lieu à des moments d’interculturalisme productifs tant sur scène qu’en coulisses grâce à ce que Melissa Poll appelle la « dramaturgie scénographique ». En effet, la ré-« écriture » scénique de Lepage met à profit le potentiel évocateur du corps de chaque interprète et l’emplacement du spectacle, afin de produire une adaptation postdramatique enracinée dans un texte scénique très visuel et physique. Puisant aux études interculturelles, à la dramaturgie scénique, aux études postcoloniales et à l’adaptation postdramatique, cette étude propose un bref ...