Bancs Publics — Luxembourg Theatre

During the Covid period, the performing arts — theatre in particular — had to find a way of carrying on.

Director Laure Roldan and set designer Laura Mannelli asked me to devise a sound system for a promenade theatre piece, built as a layered “mille-feuille” of sound. The layers stood for an inner consciousness and an outer environment.

The setup was designed for a small group of five to six people, each carrying their own internet-connected smartphone and headphones. The actors led the audience along an urban route through the city of Luxembourg.

The actors wore headphones and a microphone connected to their smartphone, which ran an application sending their words to the composer, who could process them live. The composer also played sound layers, both into the audience's headphones and through external speakers.

The audience therefore received two distinct layers:

• On headphones: an interiority, carried by the actors' voices and sounds streamed live
• On speakers: the environment of the piece, rendered through sound