Théo GirarD "PENSÉES ROTATIVES"
MOBILE/STABILE
A living, immersive work of art inspired by alexander calder
CREation 2026/2027
In 2018, Théo created 'Pensées Rotatives', a 15-piece orchestra for which he will write a new repertoire in 2026 inspired by the works of the great American artist Alexander Calder (1898-1976). A kind of extension of American composer Earle Brown's work with the Calderian sculpture “Chef d'Orchestre” (1964), but in his case, the Mobile would be embodied by the orchestra itself.
For Pensées Rotatives #2, he imagines his orchestra as a musical sculpture halfway between a Stabile and a Mobile by Calder. The double bassist and composer will play on balance (harmony, timbre) and movement (poly-speed, fluidity, inertia), notions at the frontiers of art, dance and music.
The museum public looks at the painted work, approaches it, takes a step aside, to savor all its subtleties. At Calder's, you can turn around the Stabiles, move to the rhythm of the invisible breaths that drive the Mobiles. Mobile/Stabile will be at the crossroads of the concert and the “Calderian” work, an orchestra in which the audience can move, and vice versa.
Writing principles
The beauty of Calder's mobile creations lies in their apparent simplicity, which nature (the wind, the sun) seizes upon, leaving everyone free to plunge into a non-figurative image. Théo Girard plans to analyze a selection of Mobiles from a number of angles to derive writing principles: movement (revolution, inertia, weight), balance, influence of external elements, number of elements.
Right from the gestation of Pensées Rotatives#1, Théo knew that the tool he had just created hid thousands of combinations that only work and time would enable him to discover. In Calder's Mobile, a work directed by nature, he found an inexhaustible source of inspiration for this new creative phase.
Pensées Rotatives is also a complex pendulum: a dynamic system consisting of two or more interconnected pendulums, whose movements are unpredictable and unpredictable, with different forces at play (recalls, friction).
Alexander Calder (1898-1976)
After painting and figurative sculptures (Calder's Circus), he went on to carve out a highly original sculptural path based on movement and balance. Notions that take on a whole new meaning when thought of in musical terms.
Théo Girard loves this artist's empirical sensibility. Whether in Roxbury (Connecticut - USA) or Saché (Touraine - France), he sees him as a painstaking, meticulous artist/craftsman who sublimates the materials he works with to create unique works.
In a 1940 exhibition catalog, Jean-Paul Sartre expressed his view of the artist and his works: “Calder doesn't suggest movement, he captures it. He catches real living movements and shapes them. [...] Calder wanted nothing more than to create scales and chords of unknown movements.” Sartre described his Mobiles as “strange beings, halfway between matter and life”.
Calder is the 20th-century artist who brought movement to sculpture. First with the help of motors, then simply in total connection with nature. These pieces of metal are cut and arranged with such precision that they create a magnificent, spellbinding balance.
France-USA connection
Calder was a convinced Francophile. After an initial period in France (1926-1933), during which he met Marcel Duchamp in Paris, among others, who later coined the term “mobile”. Calder returned to his homeland when European political tensions led to the outbreak of the Second World War. He was a staunch supporter of French artists and decided to settle permanently in Touraine in the mid-50s. His return went hand in hand with the creation of his studio in the village of Saché, which has since become a world-renowned place of residence.
Théo Girard has made regular trips to the USA in recent years to hone his skills in jazz and improvised music, and never misses an opportunity to visit New York and his favorite museums, the Moma and the Whitney Museum. The latter houses the “Cirque de Calder” (conceived while he was in France), and just as the opening of a retrospective in tribute to the artist is about to take place in the same museum, Calder dies in New York of a heart attack on November 11, 1976.
Pensées Rotatives
Pensées Rotatives is an orchestra of written and improvised music created in 2018 that has the particularity of being circular, mobile and immersive. Conceived as an extraordinary musical experience for the audience and a test for the composer and conductor I was trying to become, I'm now faced with the question: where to take this project next? The answer will surely come from my affection for the intensity of Alexander Calder's kinetic and mobile art.
pre-selection of interesting works to analyze
line-up in progress
15 artists :
4 flûtes
4 trumpets
4 saxophones
1 drumer
1 sounddesigner
Théo Girard I double bass, compositions
Inspirations
Working leads
working sketch of a sound object common to all the musicians in the orchestra
working sketch of a common sound object for all musicians in the orchestra playing modes
working sketch: Stabile
Pensées Rotatives #1 - Extrait
Texte de presse
(par Mathieu Durand)
"C’était le printemps de la disparition de Dr. John, le sorcier de La Nouvelle-Orléans. Il faisait chaud, très, très chaud, comme un été en Louisiane. Hors et dans le chapiteau du festival Jazz sous les Pommiers à Coutances, la transpiration était à son niveau maximum. Pendant un instant, Théo Girard a même craint pour la justesse des instruments qui, comme les humains, ne raffolent pas des excès de température. Et puis, Les Pensées Rotatives se sont mises en route. Une véritable aventure sons et lumières pour le public littéralement entouré, embrassé, enivré par l’orchestre XXL du contrebassiste français.
Liner notes
(by Sebastian Scotney)
There are those very special events… you only realise afterwards how much you would have liked to have been there. Richard Lee, writing for LondonJazz News about the memorable concert from the 2019 Coutances Festival which has been vividly captured on disc here, wrote: “The arrangements put me in mind of early Mike Gibbs: quite joyful and optimistic, punctuated with some jauntier, occasionally menacing motifs recalling Fables of Faubus or Kurt Weill. For me this was one of the highlights of the festival.”
Après écoute
(par Christophe Joneau)
L'orchestre sonne merveilleusement. Au delà du professionnel, du cachetonage. Bien au delà... C'est de la musique! La cohésion, l'adhésion au discours me paraissent évidentes. La confiance est présente. Ils, elles sont là. Ici et maintenant. Pas facile de fédérer autour d'une écriture toutes ces personnes si riches. Toutes ces énergies consacrées à la musique. Cette synergie qui laisse la place à l'expression individuelle. Cette addition d'individualités qui finit par constituer un collectif. Un vrai propos. Bravissimo !