Nonumoï

Opérateur

Nonumoï is a French theatrical company, created in 2007 in Gennevilliers (Paris suburb) under the impulse of Delphine Salkin, director, actress and author, in collaboration with Daniel Loayza (artistic counselor, translator) and since 2011 with Pascale Salkin (sound designer, composer for some productions).

Nonumoï aims to create theatre performances, but also events: sound installations, public readings of theatre texts or contemporary literature. Nonumoï also offers various educational workshops in different locations and for different levels and ages. The company is supported and subsidized by the city of Gennevilliers for this local work with the inhabitants.

Nonumoï also runs workshops in schools in Paris.

Nonumoï owes its name to ancient Greek: the adjective nônumos (νώνυμος), here in the plural, designates in Homer, Aeschylus or Sophocles a being deprived of name or glory, unnamed, obscure or unknown - the anonymous.
To give performances, to make stories heard, whether or not they come from the contemporary or classical repertoire, means to give a voice to the anonymous and to leave a trace.

Delphine Salkin, through her work as a theatre director but also as a radio documentary producer, seeks to transmit the traces of lives which in their singularity become universal. The anonymous always have something in common with the shadow or the darkness, as do the dead, the “crowd of heads without strength” that the Odyssey describes as nônumoï, "the nameless ones". Theatre allows us to summon these anonymous people and give them body and voice. But what are they to say? And what is our need for fiction today, now that the great myths of 20th-century humanity have collapsed? The shows created have been exploring such questions. The work of sound creation, linked to the shows, addresses the status of the image (which is omnipresent nowadays).

Up to now, the shows have been mainly based on the contemporary repertoire, allowing us to discover authors who are still unknown in France (Richard Dresser, Abi Morgan, Jasmina Bolfek). But we also like to tackle Shakespeare, Sophocles or Chekhov. The creations will always privilege the parity between men and women in our creative team. As a matter of fact, for the last four years, we have had a majority of female teams: thus, the creation Splendour in 2020 dealt with a dictatorship as seen from the point of view of four women. Actually, the all-female cast of the play was one of the reasons why we wished to work on it. Besides, apart from the lighting designer and our translator, the whole team - set designer, composer, stage manager, assistant, etc. – was made of women. When we created Below the Belt, although three men were on stage, the creative team was represented by a majority of women (set designer, assistant, composer, director, etc.).

In 2024 We are developing a Creative Europe project called "Interphono" and we want to extend it to other countries by re-evaluating it with new partners. This project, currently under way, is being led by Belgium in partnership with Madrid and Nonumoï in France. Nonumoï developed the project and is responsible for its artistic coordination in the three countries. This project will be finalised in April 2025 and we want to start sharing it with the proposals we receive, with other countries - so that we can think together about how to develop it and give it its own momentum.

Projet

Through radio and theater, the project is about reaching out to others while questioning identity, origins and urbanistic impacts on lives.

The project will question the space of one's own home in a huge city in which a bell rings and an encounter is possible. Moreover, the project wants to address migration, different origins from an inclusive point of view in line with a social inclusion priority.

This project wants to connect inhabitants in big cities of different countries through a similar artistic exploration. To make possible connections between different communities and to connect simultaneously reality (documentary, a real story) and fiction (imagination, dreams, stories). The sound creation allows to give life to reality as well as imaginary landscapes, dreams, new identity, gender etc.

The project aims to enable encounters between different stories in several cities. In order to achieve its objectives, the project is composed of different phases. immersions in a neighbourhood through a “mobile radio” (in order to meet inhabitants, those who maybe wouldn’t come to cultural places), then workshops and a “sound collection”. We work with inhabitants, having in mind an artistic creation with several tools and explorations as sound, photography, theater, dance.We will give visibility to the urbanistic and day to day realities of the people and will attract attention on how arts and culture can be powerful tools to engage to inhabitants a voice and create links between countries.

Thanks to workshops with inhabitants, “sound portraits” (reality and a dream of another place to be) will be recorded. Obtaining a sound collection (podcasts) of local biographies from different EU countries will not only allow us to map the current reality of the neighbourhoods (characteristics of its inhabitants, origin, languages, mobility patterns, number of green areas available in the urban space, what do they have in common, etc.) in which the project will be carried out but also the expectations that the participants have when they are given the opportunity to reimagine their reality without restrictions. Theater and sounds/radio are used together at any steps during workshops.

At European level, the project will give visibility to the realities of the people living in the selected neighbourhoods and will raise awareness and attract attention on how arts and culture can be powerful tools to engage with inhabitants, give them a voice and create links between countries at EU level thanks to the multilingual nature of the project (all the testimonies and voices will be recorded in the mother tongue of the participants). Possibility with Belgium - Brussels : the Cultural center of Evere « L’Entrela » / and Nonumoï (France) with a cultural center in Paris in a possible collaboration (to be confirmed and we are open to any partnership in France too) : « The Cultural Center Paris Anim’ Victor Gelez »

Partenaire(s) recherché(s)

-France (in search of partnership, theater, exhibition hall) and open to any country interested. We would like to meet partners in Croatia - Bulgaria - Romania - Germany - Greece - Poland… -Theater - radio - social inclusion with art - mid MAY if possible for a creative Mov possibility. Please contact us after in any case.

Contact

Delphine Salkin www.nonumoi.fr