La chambre des enfants

Playwright and director Anne‑Marie Ouellet is the indefatigable head prospector of L’eau du bain (Nous voilà rendus, Le son de l’ère est froid, Impatience). With her faithful sidekick Thomas Sinou, she mines reality to unearth nuggets of gold/art to put onstage, setting up a mischievous, occasionally puzzling exchange between audience and actors, reality and imagination. A native of Alma, in Quebec’s Lac-Saint-Jean region, Anne‑Marie ranged widely during her professional training, from Chicoutimi to Paris (Conservatoire) by way of Montreal (UQAM). She currently teaches theatre at the University of Ottawa.

Thomas Sinou is the clever sound guy for the creations of the collective L’eau du bain. Born in Marseille, he studied at the l’Institut supérieur des techniques du son before immigrating to Quebec in 2006. Thomas is interested in installations and the interaction between the audience, the actors and the performance space. To create hybrid shows that “give a voice to life unspoken,” he and his associate Anne‑Marie Ouellet boldly infiltrate a wide range of settings, from seniors’ centres (Nous voilà rendus) to groups of teenagers (Impatience).

Light Prospector

Nancy Bussières has been chasing the light for nearly 20 years! A renowned lighting designer, she has collaborated on a host of performances and theatre, circus and opera productions, notably with the companies L’eau du bain and Champ libre. This professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal and researcher at Hexagram, an international media arts organization, also sculpts this evanescent material by creating her own light installations. Nancy Bussières is keenly interested in new technologies and innovative approaches to setting light in motion, and reflects on the place it occupies, not only in space, but also in time. In short, brilliant questions!