Les Idoles

The final two decades of the XXth century will remain in History as the “AIDS years”. Christophe Honoré’s generation was the first to reach adulthood at the same time as being fully aware of the threat posed by AIDS. Honoré was 20 years old in 1990, the year the film-maker, Jacques Demy, died. In that same year, the choreographer Dominique Bagouet also created Jours étranges, a posthumous performance of which Honoré saw three years later. Bernard-Marie Koltès had succumbed to AIDS a year earlier; one year later, it was Hervé Guibert’s turn. Cyril Collard was preparing to start filming Les Nuits fauves, released in 1992 - whilst the health of Serge Daney, the so called “son of cinema”, was fast dwindling. Three years later, Jean-Luc Lagarce also finally succumbed to the illness. Since that time, Honoré has been writing novels and short stories for readers of all ages, making films for wide audiences, and writing and directing pieces of theatre. One of the latter was Nouveau Roman, in which he brought famous writers of the past back to life, the likes of which included Butor, Simon, Robbe-Grillet, Duras and Sagan. Here, he once again finds himself paying homage to his Idols, six of them:  Collard, Daney, Demy, Guibert, Koltès and Lagarce. With six different ways of looking death and desire in the face, Honoré takes us back to the “dark and terrifying days” of his childhood. A show in response to the following question: “How are we going to dance now?”