Zip Zap

About

Zip Zap is a play of juggling and multimedia, its creation starts in 2006. Our desir to combine in an fully innovative way the art of multimedia and the art of juggling made us meet for this ambitious project.

One specificity of the show is the use of video to create a permanent interaction between real and virtual. A new dimension appears on stage, where the rules of objects manipulation disappear : the screen, which the borders are easily crossed by both characters. These offences to the rules of reality deceive the feelings of the spectactors ; they are immersed in a magic world where reality, fiction and imaginary are so intimately combined so that the true becomes false and the false becomes more true than the true.

Zip Zap is a show without speaking, for all audiences, and lasts one hour.

Poster

Click to enlarge

Casting

Acting / Juggling :

Staging / scenography :

Technical management / lights engineering / decors design :

Accessories and stage management :

Video design :

Sound design :

Costums design :

Artistic collaboration :

Story

A new video game is going to break the news : it's a juggling duel between a real player and a virtual character. What is more magic than playing with its avatar ?

But Zip and Zap, the characters of the game, escape from the control of the creator of the game, Max. They go out from the screen and arrive in the real world !

Able to have their own desirs, inspired by their new freedom, they explore the teenager room of Max. Any discovery may cause a new game or feat. Their play adventures go on whereas the outer world can panic because of the consequences of such a bug in the video game.

And if this show were an allegory of what could happen in the head of a young addict to video games, his mind could zap too !

With a entertaining view, the consequences of virtuality abuse are pointed. Should we moderate our use of virtuality ? Anyway, abuse of this show can only be beneficial for your health.

Critics

Click on the author to read his critic.

• + Joël BRETON Director of the theater LA PALENE in ROUILLAC (16)

  One screen on stage, motion pictures on.
  Hall black out.

  A young boy is there, on stage, in front of the screen, he's playing !
  Two friends are ringing, he leaves with them, closes the door, the room remains silent.

  But... when the screen turns back on, two characters goes out from it and ...

  And there, for us, it's the surprise !

  Going on, we discover a true, a beautiful show, rich, demanding, well written.
  Moving among joy, sadness, humor, sweetness, poetry,
  Moving among performance and sweeter moments,
  A pleasures show, an aerial show,
  A rich show where the purpose is not forgotten; the video games and the danger they represent, but also by snapshots the worries we have in this time.

  Circus, theater, poetry, video, a mix of kinds with a big work of appearing/disappearing around the screen.

  A true beautiful moment, a true beautiful show which has all its place in a demanding theater program, category new circus.

  Moreover, this show can be a good support to make some public actions for the children about the dangers of video games.

  Go meet this show, don't even ask !
  It's a show like we like them .

• + Jean Louis THOMAS Co-organizer of the Festival JONGLISSIMO (51)

  ZIP ZAP – JONGLISSIMO 2008
  
  
  The « Nulle Part » company bringing together members from « Tout Par Terre », « Jonglargonne » and « Oboubambulle » presents its first production Zip Zap at Jonglissimo 2008. The company gives a superb example of the crossover between juggling techniques and video an increasingly popular combination, but not so easy to achieve...
  
  Zip Zap proposes a classic narrative framework in a tale concerning the experience of life and independence for a passive or fiction character (such as Pinocchio). The show has two main video characters in the form of virtual elves who cause chaos in the daily life of the absent player (the latter having left them a clear field, when leaving his room).
  
  From their virtual past the two protagonists have kept a taste for childlike confrontations and duels. They aren’t afraid of virtuoso juggling exercises but that’s what one expects from super-heroes who are the stars of a game devoted to this subject : ball, bouncing ball, cigar boxes, diabolos and passing clubs follow each other at increasing speed, allowing the audience to lose themselves in the story whilst simultaneously appreciating the technical wizardry on show.
  
  Throughout the show, the virtual and real world are continuously connected by means of humorous and poetic imagery (cigar boxes representing a fragile Eiffel Tower, balls bouncing amongst snowflakes, acrylic balls emerging from soap bubbles…) The conquest of the room is achieved with the construction of a grand monument ironically inscribed and the rapport with the virtual origins found by an ingenious passing by 4 with two virtual clones who refuse to cross the screen bar! The show culminates by faming a deep fusion between the bedroom and the virtual game leaving us to question the juxtaposition between reality and our own visual perception of it.
  
  Having attended both the showing given to school children and that given to the general public the following day I can only say that the story won over the audience irrespective of age or background, proving the quality and efficiency of the plot. The various juggling interventions, brilliantly accomplished by Priam PIERRET and Colin CAMARET, not forgetting Anthony DAGNAS reinforce the impression made by this modern tale : after all, when playing a super hero of a console game, one really is expected to juggle like a super hero !
  

• + Patricia CHARLES Director of the Festival THEATRES EN FETE (16)

  HAPPYNESS ONLY HAPPYNESS !!!!
  
  At least a show that goes out from what we are used to see.
  
  When we first see the work at the beginning of the creation, the team of T.E.F was already nicely surprised, without any doubt, this show was matching the original look of our casting : S from THEATRES EN FETE.
  The spectator is brought in a wonderful world where reality, fiction and imaginary are so deeply combined than the true becomes false and the false more true than the true.
  
  ZIP ZAP allows to dream, to think, to admire but also to laugh at the plays of the actors or their avatars : good staging, good job.