Manto
„Everything I need is: whiteness. More whiteness...all whiteness...To chase my obscurity and the obscurity of this world.“
M. Bousselmi
Manto is an encounter with the present moment. A moment from the life of a creature blessed with the gift of divination, who shares the bliss and burden of this gift with the audience. Following its inner voice, Manto’s steps measure the circle of the mythical universe with caution and courage, sensing their possible implications.
The puppeteer Tibo Gebert imperceptibly animates the almost life-sized puppet, and it is carried along by Harald Maier’s, the countertenor’s, live vocals. Manto embodies the archaic type of a seer, knowing about “the healing oft he noble fount” (Goethe Faust, part II), but nonetheless trusting, that everyone watching will find his/her own path to knowledge, for: “I love those who yearn for the impossible”.
Silvia Brendenal
„Manto passes through sensitive spaces, or rather, is being passed through by them! We don’t know!
She loses her bearings, then finds herself, only to get lost again!
Everything gets turned upside-down, mixed up; spaces and sounds, silence and images.
How do we dissentangle and separate reality from perception? The magical time from the moment we experience?
How do we find solace through the troubling and unknown that resound within us? How do we calm down?”
Michel Cerda
„Tibo Gebert’s puppets spend a lot of time looking around. They somehow never disclose what they are looking at. They look at symbolic places that cannot be located. They are somewhere yet nowhere. They are the past, life, and death. From a diffuse brightness/darkness a magic arises that seizes our fantasy and keeps it moving. Twilight creates room for imagination.“
Gert Engel (Das Portrait - www.fidena.de)
Press Release: Théâtrorama
Le panorama du spectacle bien vivant
»À la limite des perceptions, là où les sens frôlent le mystique, les premières apparitions de Manto sont furtivement déposées dans l’instant présent… «
Laura Lalande 10.12.2014
Press Release: Libération
La marionnette est un objet sacré
»Tibo Gebert a présenté Manto, personnage de voyante de la mythologie «transcendé», au festival de Charleville-Mézières.«
Frédérique Roussel, 27.09.2015
IDEA/ DIRECTION/ PERFORMANCE : TIBO GEBERT | ARTISTIC COLLABORATION: MICHEL CERDA, GABRIEL HERMAND-PRIQUET, INGA SCHMIDT | SINGER: HARALD MAIERS | MUSICAL COMPOSITION: MARK BADUR, ULRICH KODJO WENDT | SCENOGRAPHY/ PUPPETS: TIBO GEBERT | LIGHT DESIGN: FABIEN BOSSARD, TIBO GEBERT | COSTUMES: SONJA ALBARTUS, NICOLE REINBOLD, TIBO GEBERT | PRODUCTION : NUMEN COMPANY/ CENTRE DRAMATIQUE NATIONAL D’ALSACE STRASSBURG | CO-PRODUCTION : SCHAUBUDE BERLIN, FIGURENTHEATERFESTIVAL ERLANGEN | PROJECT SUPPORTED BY : FONDS DARSTELLENDE KÜNSTE E.V.