Group F, from France, perform The Breath of the Volcano. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Group F, from France, perform The Breath of the Volcano. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Auckland Arts Festival begins next Thursday night with Groupe F’s pyrotechnic show. Its director tells Stephen Jewell that Skin of Fire is like a walk through the beauty of the planet
Two years after staging The Breath of the Volcano at the Domain, Groupe F will once again open the Auckland Arts Festival when they return to New Zealand with their latest show, Skin of Fire. But rather than trying to top their previous extravaganza, the French pyro-technic company's creative director, Christophe Berthonneau, believes the thematic message they are attempting to convey is more important than the dazzling visuals.
"With this kind of performance it's spectacular and big but at the same time it's also trying to be modest in the way we are trying to express ourselves through poetry and other sensations. It's a strange balance between entertainment - because it's for families and the general public - but at the same time, we've done a lot of research to try and create something really original.
"We've done a lot of big events around the world for huge celebrations but we're not like at the Olympics. We're just celebrating the audience and the local community."
The Breath of the Volcano was directly rooted in the nearby surroundings, but Skin of Fire is more concerned with the wider picture. "Last time we came down we were celebrating the landscape so we can't come back this time and do the same thing. We love New Zealand but this time around we're trying to talk about what we all share.
"It's like a walk through the beauty of the planet. In 2013 we were talking specifically about Auckland so the show was built around concepts like migration. With Skin of Fire it's more about what we have in common with the audience, so you could be in New Zealand or France as 95 per cent of the questions are essentially the same."
Berthonneau says Skin of Fire reflects upon the rapidly accelerated nature of contemporary society. "Since the year 2000, things like productivity have been growing faster and faster so now we all need to face the truth about what's happening," he says. "When it comes to the evolution of humanity, it's not like there's any one group of people on this planet who have a better idea about what to do than anyone else, as everyone is basically trying to do their best for the next generation." Pointing at his laptop Berthonneau admits he shouldn't be immune from such criticism. "I have these things, so I am a part of that consumer society. But I'm also trying to understand what lies beneath that in my own story. I'm very empathetic so I feel a lot for the people but they are all just living for today. They're not looking 100 or even 50 years into the future, they're just looking at how to survive right now. The problem is that we need to look towards tomorrow, so Skin of Fire is a kind of metaphor for that."
Image 1 of 12: Photo / Brett Phibbs
Formed in 1990, Groupe F's independence has always been an important part of their ethos, funding its more intimate endeavours through private commissions rather than government grants. "You can divide what we do into the big pyrotechnics and the more artistic side of the live shows," says Berthonneau. "Since the beginning of the company, we have chosen not to accept any funding from institutions that might want to interfere and tell us what to do, so we finance the more artistic activity through the pyrotechnics."
Like Lemi Ponifasio's I AM, Skin of Fire commemorates the centenary of the beginning of World War I. "Because New Zealand is on the other side of the planet to France, the world wars are one of the few links between us," says Berthonneau. "For the people of New Zealand, World War I was like an emptiness, a hole, because you lost a lot of people for such a small country that is so far away from everywhere else.
"It's is not an easy thing to do, as I don't want to lecture anyone about whether the world is a good place or not. But we're all losers in that kind of situation and this is about more than talking about what is important for people when they are so far away from home. And with the fireworks, we have the power to show what it would be like to be near the centre of an explosion or the flames that come out of that."
Having first visited the country in 1996 for that year's International Arts Festival in Wellington, Berthonneau is looking forward to once again making the trip Downunder. "It's interesting to come back, almost 20 years later and see the differences between then and now," he says. "The first major surprise that I got back then was the colour and the size of the mussels on the seabed. Then over time you discover other things."
Based in the village of Mas-Thibert in southeast France, Berthonneau has long been impressed by the diversity of our landscape. "I live in the country here because I hate the city," he says. "When you think about New Zealand you realise that the relationship between the people and the land is more important there than it is in most other places. Along with Australia, it was one of the last places to be colonised by the Europeans, so much of it is unspoiled, but in many others the environment has been transformed faster than anywhere else.
"You only have to look at what has disappeared in New Zealand because the environment is so fragile. In France, the environment was transformed 2000 years ago when the Romans cut down the trees to build roads. I'm not saying whether that is a good or a bad thing but with the speed of growth nowadays we need to ask whether we just want to be consumers or if we can go back and look at things like how the landscape can express poetry."
What:Skin of Fire world premiere with Groupe F Where and when: Auckland Domain upper field, March 5-7; gates open from 6.45pm
