Cultural Olympiad - The Temptation of the Sky

While waiting for the Flame to pass by at the end of the afternoon, and while sporting and cultural events will be on offer all day around Mont-Saint-Michel, let yourself be surprised as you wander around the abbey, by the artistic performances of the Compagnie Hors Surface at 11am and 1pm.

• The Home show, a fabulous structure like a floating ship on the Terrasse de l'Ouest, a virtuoso performance on an XXL trampoline that rhymes with elevation, an acrobatic theatre of the unknown. In this world of visual and musical poetry, his destiny is taking shape on the horizon. Home invites you to lose yourself, for a moment, in a bouncing world of sensations and emotions.
• The Mallakhamb show, an in situ creation with a live double bass player in the cloister of the abbey, and the Indian mat, a little-known Indian sporting discipline, will be placed in the centre of the cloister, pointing skywards. A blend of contemporary hip-hop and acrobatics, this is a truly poetic journey between heaven and earth, in a majestic setting that invites contemplation.
• The Elipse show, a performance based around the circle and the movements of time in the Réfectoire des moines, will feature three circus disciplines that echo gravity and the forces of attraction. The quest for elevation through jumping, coiling and stretching, slow or mad rotation, ever higher as freedom takes shape...
• The Murmures show, a mix of movement, music and song... Five students from ENACR (Ecole Nationale des Arts du Cirque) will be expressing themselves artistically in the Crypt of the Gros Piliers, bringing their gestures of freedom to life. They will be accompanied by a lyric singer and a harpist. In a search for movement around the walls that surround them, they will talk to us about mutual aid and freedom, confinement and conquest.

This project has been awarded the Cultural Olympiad label by Paris 2024.

Olympiade Culturelle de Paris 2024

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The Compagnie Hors Surface offers a unique day of high-flying shows, featuring acrobatics, music and performances in Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey and throughout the site.

Choreographed by director Damien Droin and performed by students from ENACR, joined by around fifty professional artists, the attempt to reach the sky reveals an age-old dream, both intimate and collective. Conquering the sky has a different meaning for everyone, whether it's opening up or taking to the skies. Although the myth of Icarus warns against this mad dream, the Greeks cultivated the notion of surpassing oneself in order to reach the abode of the Gods, Olympus. This quest is reflected in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which play with the gods, those of the stadium, athletes deploying all their mental and physical strength for the beauty of the feat and victory.

La tentative du ciel is inspired by sporting feats to draw different metaphors for these quests. The feat and the rigour of sport will gradually leave the framework, the codes and the rules of competition, to give birth to a gesture of freedom. The Greeks chose a neutral and sacred place, the sanctuaries of Olympia surrounded by Mount Cronion, for the demonstration of sporting prowess. Echoing this choice, Mont Saint-Michel stands out as an emblematic site in France, inviting us to elevate ourselves through its topography and its history, linking everyone to the sacred.

The artistic proposal put forward by the company Hors Surface consists of offering the public several spectacular forms spread across the site. Sportsmen, circus artists and musicians will blend their performances into the landscape, with acrobatic installations hidden in the natural elements, giving their feats a touch of the supernatural. The closer you get to the Mont, the more you'll feel the call of heights, with ever more spectacular attempts at ascent: a great ladder that takes you to infinity, walls that you climb, masts, trampolines and a hot-air balloon that give you a bird's eye view of the world.