Les Limbes

Etienne Saglio / Monstre(s)

(Rennes/France)

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An area of darkness, floating creatures of light and dark magic. Spirit, are you there? A figure and its double, a red jacket, a lance and a skull – as if in a trance the illusionist Etienne Saglio evokes and animates his objects. He creates a poetic universe of floating ghosts, asks them to a bizarre dance on their strange journey to lead them into the realm of the dead as a kind of soul companion. In Dante, the Latin word ‘limbus’ refers to ‘limbo’. But Les Limbes signifies a twilit realm; where lifeless, inanimate things are suddenly struck by magic sparks and the audience is left baffled by ghosts in pursuit.

Etienne Saglio, a master of new magic with a penchant for the bizarre, learned his trade at Le Lido, the renowned artist’s school in Toulouse, as well as at the Centre national des arts du cirque. In his own words, he develops his magical universes out of “images and encounters that involve strange moments”. He has toured all over the world with his successful production Le soir des monstres (2009).