Did you know that Christine Beaulieu designed the second part of her famous documentary play? i love hydro ?
Yeah, okay, okay, not exactly the sequel. But I couldn't help but think. i love hydro By learning about the content of his latest documentary play, which will premiere this summer in Montreal, salmon mites.
“I didn’t think of it that way. I let myself be guided by what touches me, what interests me,” the designer explains when I say the word “wing.”
“But yes, necessarily, it is the same person who writes. It is me. So I think there are a lot of connections to be made in tone, approach and reflections,” she adds.
Once again, there is a reflection on our attitude towards nature.
Christine Beaulieu
In this new play, intended to be a family show, it essentially tells the “wonderful journey” of salmon in the Métis River, a river located in Basse-Saint-Laurent. It tells us about the event that almost caused their disappearance in the last century: the construction of two hydroelectric power plants.
Photo by Martin Tremblay, Press Archives
The Métis River is one of 22 salmon rivers in the Gaspésie.
Dams built in the 1920s and 1940s blocked access to the grounds salmon used to spawn. To save them, since the 1960s they have been trucked to a section of the river itself beyond the power plants (which are no longer operating today).
Why do I wonder if i love hydro And salmon mites It was written with the same goal in mind.
A question that Christine Beaulieu answers in the negative. Because for her the concept of “subject” is not at the heart of the creative process.
Above all, she says, she is “driven to strive.”
It has a story to tell.
However, later on, what goes straight to his heart, in the wake of i love hydrowhen the audience told him that the play had had an impact on their lives.
“When people say to me, ‘Now, when I turn on the light, I think of the river.’ I think I’ve achieved something when someone tells me that. Because you have to realize that things don’t come from nowhere. That we make life difficult for nature for our own comfort, for our own existence, for our own species. As if we were the butt of shit!”
Although she doesn’t have a specific goal as a designer, she says she wants her pieces to be inspiring. And when we talk about it, she admits she has a weakness for artwork that changes her perspective.
“I love it when artistic expressions—whether painting, theater, television, or film—change my own view of the world. I like it when I encounter something that stays with me later in my life. It changes the way I see things, the way I want to live my life, what I want to care about.”
Much i love hydro that salmon mites They are inspiring works. In both we find a call to change our relationship with nature.
Yet here again, Christine Beaulieu puts up a barrier when I tell her that I think this precise idea is clearly central to both works.
Its goal is not to change viewers' relationship with nature. At least, not explicitly.
She explained that being ethical is not in her DNA.
“If it happened to them, each in their own way, of course. But my mother never lectured me. Which means I had no instructions. [à donner] She says, “How should you live your life after watching my show?”
“I trust people’s intelligence,” the author adds, “the trust that what touched me while creating this thing will reach them somewhere. That’s why it’s important to create. Because we humans are beasts that can be influenced. You send something out into the universe, it touches someone, it happens to someone… Someone lends the book to someone, invites someone to a show… We participate in the conversation by creating something.”
Christine Beaulieu created her play on Salmon of the Mitis in 2021, after being invited by architect Pierre Thibault to present a theatrical work that year at the Jardins de Métis.
Photo by Jean-François Bérubé, courtesy of Christine Beaulieu
Christine Beaulieu during her play salmon mites In the Jardins de Métis, in 2021
The play was performed at the same location in 2022, and will be performed again this year, through July 6, before performances in Montreal and Ferme Neuve.
A book based on this piece, illustrated by Caroline Lavergne, was published last fall.
All this contributed to changing his relationship with nature, to making him aware of the special position that man occupies on earth.
Example: She can write a play about salmon, but the opposite is impossible.
“We can know that a species is in danger, and we can take action to help,” she says.
“It seems that through work salmon mites“That realization hit me really hard. We are the only species on Earth that has this ability. So it comes with a responsibility to be empathetic, to be sensitive, to work for other species.”
“If we don’t take this responsibility seriously, if we don’t recognize our role, we are wrong. We will regret it,” he added.
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