MIKRO / BARTÓK

Cas Public

The Cuckoo Game, the verb “to be,” Bartók’s Mikrokosmos. Cas Public presents a poetic journey through learning, language, and self-discovery—playful for children, poignant for adults, and meticulously crafted for both.

Three themes intertwine in this new creation by Hélène Blackburn and Cai Glover. First, the game of hide-and-seek, a child’s first encounter with absence and return, which fuels the child’s imagination. Next, the acquisition of words, anchored by the verb “to be,” which structures thought and shapes identity. Finally, there is the music, inspired by Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos —both a musical work and a teaching method designed by the composer to introduce his son to the piano.

Performed by five artists, the work creates a dialogue between movement, speech, and sign language in a mesmerizing interplay of appearances and metamorphoses. Each gesture reveals the mysterious meaning of becoming: growing up in a world in perpetual transformation. MIKRO / BARTÓK is a sensory and poetic journey, an invitation to see differently, to listen differently, and to feel fully.

credits

Choreography Hélène Blackburn and Cai Glover Performers Alexander Ellison, Anja Justin Fanslau, Leah Hamel, Arnaud Mongeon et Robyn Neumann Rehearsals Shawn Hounsell Music Mikrokosmos by Béla Bartòk Set design and lighting Myriane Lemaire and Hélène Blackburn Costumes Michael Slack and Hélène Blackburn Production Cas Public in co-production with the Agora de la danse