Bartabas: The French impresario who's created an incredible show on Irish Travellers
Bartabas's show on Irish Travellers is the latest in his series on exile cultures. Picture: Editions Gallimard - Francesca Mantovani
The great Bartabas has turned his eye on the Irish travelling community.
One of France’s most original artists – a maverick genius who has been producing stunning, equestrian theatre for almost 40 years – is showcasing Traveller culture and history in a cabaret that runs until the end of the year.
The production opened in his theatre, Zingaro, in a suburb on the north-east side of Paris in mid-October. There are five nightly performances every week in the 700-seater theatre. Shows have been selling out; audiences have been responding with standing ovations each night.
“The reaction here in France to the production has been excellent,” says Bartabas. “People and the press love it. They’re thrilled to discover this people and their culture.”
The production, Cabaret de l’exil – Irish Travellers, is the second instalment of an exile-themed series by Zingaro. Last season’s focus was a homage to klezmer music and the Yiddish culture of Eastern European Jewish communities.
Bartabas was drawn to Irish Traveller culture for several reasons: their love of horses; the fact they have their own language, Cant; the centrality of an oral tradition and music to their culture; and their curious predicament – while, say, gypsies emigrated to other lands, Irish Travellers are outsiders in their own land.
“Zingaro has always been inspired by the different cultures that we come across,” says Bartabas.
“We’re a nomadic company who travels around the world and we’re interested by the Irish Travellers because the theme of the show is exile and they’re sort of exiled in their own country. Their way of life is in opposition to the normalised one in Europe, but to us, the nomadic life is the natural way of life for human beings.
“I find it interesting that their nomadic way of life goes all the way back to the origins of humanity. Today, their lifestyle is in total opposition to the ‘orthodoxy’ of the world and to the notions of power, property and the withdrawn nature of our societies. To us in Zingaro, their way of life is appealing. Their nomadic beliefs are in harmony with our philosophy.”
Zingaro is a singular theatre troupe – a circus tribe that has been following Bartabas since the 1980s. Bartabas was born in a middle-class Parisian suburb in 1957, the son of an architect. He was drawn to horses from a young age. A teenage motorbike accident killed his dreams of becoming a jockey, but he became consumed with circus performing, especially with horses.
Aged 18, he dropped the name given to him at birth, Clément Marty, for Bartabas the Furious (he later dropped the Furious bit). By 19, he was touring with his own circus – a mix of friends and animals, including horses, dogs and rats. They fused music, commedia dell-arte and circus performance. In 1984, he founded Zingaro, an equestrian theatre company, which started performing more elaborate productions, adding elements like archery and acrobatics, falconry and fencing, for embellishment. The core ingredients of equestrian art, dance, comedy and music remained though.
To date, Zingaro has performed more than 20 productions. It has toured all over the world, from Mexico to Moscow, from New York to Istanbul. Philip Glass has written music for its productions. The renowned French composer Pierre Boulez has conducted for it. The flamenco dancer Andrés Marín and Kô Murobushi, a master of butoh, the Japanese dance form, have been collaborators.
In 2003, Bartabas set up an equestrian academy in the old stables at the Palace of Versailles.
He has directed films and worked with ballet troupes. He has choreographed a landmark performance of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
American producers once tried to lure him to Nevada, trying to get him to do a circus residency on the strip in Las Vegas. He turned down the huge amount of dollars on offer. He will only have his horses perform five nights a week at most. His horses are always the stars of his shows.
There are 22 performing horses on stage (and a one-year-old mule) as part of the Cabaret de l’exil – Irish Travellers production. They perform classic dressage; their riders sing and play instruments astride them. Bartabas likes to work with older horses because he has to know them perfectly for theatre.
He works with their breathing to relax them. Their instincts are less biddable than many other types of animals. They march to their own tune. It’s unlikely one of his horses will defecate on stage but if for, example, a horse urinates on stage one night during a production, it will likely pee at exactly the same moment every ensuing night.
The theatre company lives – when it’s not touring – on a ranch beside Aubervilliers, a nineteenth-century fort outside Paris. The site has a circular wooden theatre, a restaurant and, of course, horse stables. Staff – and their families – live in caravans on site. They include theatre artists, horse trainers, riders, production technicians and costume-designers. Zingaro lives in a caravan too.
“The purpose of Zingaro was to create a company half-men, half-horses who has an affection for music and who wishes to show the public the relationship between men and animals,” says Bartabas.
“To us, it’s important to cultivate the link between ourselves and the public across the world and to point out that the way we treat horses is directly connected to the way we treat humans. Horses provide a mirror for how humans treat each other.”
Thomas McCarthy, the Irish Traveller, sean-nós singer and storyteller, is a lynchpin in the production each night, as he dips into his repertoire of traditional Irish songs. He’s accompanied by the Louth fiddler Gerry O’Connor and several French musicians.
Bartabas also takes part in the production. McCarthy was invited to Paris last March by him to watch a performance of Zingaro’s Yiddish exile cabaret. He was mesmerised by the production and delighted to take up the offer by Bartabas to explore Irish Travellers’ culture and heritage.
“Bartabas is absolutely amazing,” says McCarthy. “It’s not just because of the show. I admire his outlook on everything."
"He’s doing a four-year exploration of exiles. I went to see the first show and it was fabulous. In this show, he’s incorporated ancient Irish history – the colossal role, say, that Travellers played throughout the Famine, which hasn’t been documented, taking babies from women who could no longer feed all their children, as Travellers knew how to live off the land.
“He runs a very tight ship. He has a huge group of old French people, young French people, involved. Without them all, it wouldn’t work. He’s into people that are into horses whether they’re nomadic or not. He’s got some stunning horses. They’re out of this world. And what they can do is shocking!”
Bartabas is equally impressed by McCarthy’s talents: “Thomas is a singer with extraordinary sensitivity. He’s a living memory because he retains within himself more than 1,000 songs passed down through his family – from his mother, his grand-mother, and so on. He’s also a beautiful soul who brings light onto the Travellers.”
- Cabaret de l’exil – Irish Travellers is performing at Zingaro Equestrian Theatre, Aubervilliers, France until 31 December. See: www.zingaro.fr
