About the Show

Director's Note

Big Chief Juan Pardo of the Golden Comanche Tribe honored me with a very rare collaboration during which we worked to share our knowledge and imagine a form of hybrid show, between documentary theatre and concert performance. The story is inspired by our meeting and the successive revelations we experienced in Louisiana and Réunion, between February and September 2024, as well as my creative residency in Puerto Rico in April 2025, during which time I connected with the renowned bomba players Marién Torres López and Ivelisse Diaz.

This show has an infusion of Big Chief Juan Pardo’s universe (music, costumes, autobiographical elements) and the sensibilities of four other multi-instrumentalists: Frédéric Madia (roulèr, ngoni, kayanm, song) and Zélito Déliron (world flutes, roulèr, song) from Réunion; Marién Torres López and Ivelisse Diaz (percussion, dance, and singing), both bomba specialists and activists from Puerto Rico.

As for me, I play a character on stage who begins in a state of desperation, in the throes of humanity, whose impromptu mission will be to create a bridge between our insularities. The old Choctaw name for New Orleans is Bulbancha, “the land of many tongues.” A sacred place, an area of gatherings, where if one did not fully understand one another, one always knew how to find common ground on this New Orleans “island,” the northernmost of the Caribbean, surrounded by Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi to the south. It is this model, similar to Réunion’s society, that guides us, closest to our humanist convictions. We all share our stories through the texts we have written together that bear in them the mark of the path of resilience to carry out our daily struggles with joy and flamboyance. Thus, several languages are heard on stage: Louisiana Creole, Réunion Creole, English, French, and Spanish. In this way, the idea of Bulbancha is anchored on set, as a unifying signal at a time when fear and those who manipulate it poison empathy and understanding of the other.

I want to place the ocean at the heart of the dramaturgy and staging, this expanse of all the unknowns that connect us to what is most painful in our island stories. In our performance, water becomes a means of communication, a natural radio to unite diasporas which no longer or hardly know each other. 

This project carries the intimacy of the halo of candles, when the electricity is cut off after a hurricane or a cyclone passes. Its seam is never-ending, a seam between small pieces of scattered cultures, an archipelago seam. From there naturally arises the flamboyance of the colorful costumes of the Mardi Gras Indians, the vegijante masks of the Puerto Rican devil, and the flamboyant tree covered with scarlet flowers in the southern hemisphere to announce deep summer. This tree has multiple medicinal properties and serves as a metaphor-homage to all those who decided to carve out a brilliant trajectory despite the obstacles of history. The Flamboyants!

Organization Bio

Compagnie Tilawcis, an innovative and ambitious theatre company, was founded at the end of 2019 in Saint-Paul, Réunion. This company distinguishes itself through its unique approach to performing arts, blending hybridity, rituals, and interdisciplinary elements to create singular performances deeply rooted in Réunion culture. Tilawcis is a neologism combining the tylosis beetle (symbol of artistic ephemerality) and Jack Kerouac’s expression “tea-law” (power of imagination). The company’s productions address societal issues through the lens of the personal. Their uncompromising approach is enriched by the aesthetics of journeys undertaken and chance encounters. The artistic research focuses on a creation that must not be overshadowed by cumbersome technical apparatus. Emphasis is placed on the text’s inherent simplicity, on embodiment as the simple transmitter of a dynamic message. Our aim is to raise issues and transform them into the unexpected by focusing on the performers (humankind) who catalyze the audience’s projections. In concrete terms, in the crucible of the stage, the actor is an alchemist, at the heart of the creative act, fully engaged. Even to the point of self-transcendence, as long as they remain the unpredictable messenger of the world’s whispers. 

Credits

Flamboyants! is produced by the Compagnie Tilawcis, with the support of the French government, co-presented by La Escuelita Bombera de Corazón and the Logan Center for the Arts. This residency is made possible in part by the support of the France Chicago Center at The University of Chicago, and the Friends of the Logan Center. This tour is supported by Villa Albertine through their Theatre & New Forms program, as well as the Institut Français, through their International Artistic Dissemination Programme (PIDA). Flamboyants! received Reunionnese support for its premiere production from the CDNOI, Cité des Arts, the Région Réunion, the Départment de la Réunion, the City of Saint Denis, and the City of Saint Paul, and national support from FME.