Performance chronology

With

Family M
Hubert Bernard Thiry
Marie-Jeanne Françoise Leick
Kurt Jörg Müller
Brigitte Cendrine Gallezot

Family N
Henri-Claude Eric Domeneghetty
Bernadette Régine Westenhoeffer
Autie Karim Sebbar
Petra Antje Schur

Premiered april 27, 1999 for the Strasbourg Danse Résidence

Duration 1h

The Family, its adolescence, its troubles, its illusions, its disturbing truths. La vie rêvée d"Aimé recounts with grating humor the story of our daily lives. Restrictive parents, terrible children, laughable or nightmarish situations, neuroses and obsessions, tenderness and friction, are presented in a decorous "box of mischief". In this portrait of a family which is truer than nature, the very caricature of a "model" society or the model of a "caricature" society, Mark Tompkins holds up to us a mirror of our lives in the form of a musical comedy in the French style. It is a joyful and playful spectacle, brimming with energy, simplicity and freshness.

La vie rêvée d'Aimé is a show designed for young people, and with the young people who participated in the process of creation in the context of a residency of the Company in Strasbourg from September 1998 to June 2000. The creation was based upon themes that emerged in the course of a project entitled "The family M ". Although it is suitable for all ages, this show is aimed mainly at teenagers, whose questioning, special interests and no-holds-barred energy added immensely to the work within the UNSS dance groups of the colleges involved in the project.

PRESS EXTRACTS

“...Mark Tompkins produces a stormy sitcom, in which the dance of the Spermatozoa and the Swans hits the appropriate note…Between polyphony and cacophony, La vie rêvée d'Aimé covers its subject while skewing it just to the right degree. A pinch of crudeness, three fingers of cruelty, and a magic decor by Jean Louis Badet....”

Rosita Boisseau, Le Monde, december 1, 2000

 

“…The American dancer, who is attempting a ìyoung peoplesî show for the first time, has manifestly found the nucleus of adolescent tumult....”

Maïa Bouteillet, Libération, march 25, 2000

 

“…La vie rêvée d'Aimé overflows with the joy of life and a truly youthful spontaneity…It should be seen with the entire family, and in it you will probably find a few aspects of your own....”

Carole Schnitzler, Les Saisons de la Danse, september 1999

 

“...A bouncy and joyful show, the performed, sung, danced and dreamed life of Aimé is right for every type of audience. The delight is genuine. In a kitsch decor, deliberately very overdone, the traditional virtues of the family take off into song. Domestic and family satire is at its height. In a setting of multiple scenic resources, this musical comedy, with its choreographic accents, has many hilarious and shocking surprises in store...”

Gilbert Jean, Dauphiné Libéré, march 31, 2001

 

“The show presented by the IDA Company surprises by its originality... La vie rêvée d'Aimé is an audacious mixture of humor, dance, speech and song, dealing with malice of the teenage pre-occupation with the rites of passage - to another class, to the adult age, out of the family, into sexuality, and so on.”

La dépêche Lavelanet, may 15, 2000

 

“Mark Tompkins and the I.D.A. company serve up a veritable festival of humor in their presentation of its latest creation, La vie rêvée d'Aimé. The show is an effortless mixture of genres, providing an insight into families and their taboos. The sketches follow one after the other at high speed, leading the audience into surprise after surprise. The show opens a laughting spell which the audience can’t resist, and continues right up to the final rock and roll extravaganza.”

E.V, Le Bien Public Les Dépêches, march 24, 2000

 

“...La vie rêvée d'Aimé, more of a musical comedy than a choreography, is a superb success. And a true delight. Does Mark Tompkins still have the heart of the child? Most decidedly. For it is not the somewhat hardened adult heart which has succeeded in creating on stage a show so full of freshness and mischief.. There is not an ounce of heaviness or one second of boredom throughout a continuous string of events studded with sparkling gags and which the actors in this "dream life" present in the manner of a tale based on a life as crazy as it is joyful. What could have inspired Tompkins to the creation of this wonderful production? The answer is right there, full of knowing winks throughout the sketches which combine nonsense with a remarkable awareness. And there is one outstanding addition to make you happy. It is that there is one special "actor" on the stage who has more than a little to do with this success, and that is the mind-blowingly versatile set of Jean-Louis Badet. In the time that it takes to shift two or three panels, the audience is transported to another place, with an inventiveness which leaves onegasping , open-mouthed in astonishment,.”

Igor, Hebdoscope, may 19 to 25, 1999