Research

Marcus Borja, theatre director and doctor of SACRe

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Actor, director, playwright, teacher, director of choir ... Marcus Borja is a personality of the theater world and now, since December 1st, is a Doctor of SACRe (Sciences Art Creation Research), following his research work on the musical approach of the techniques and poetics on stage. Focus on this original doctoral program and M. Borja’s career.

Soutenance de Marcus Borja, docteur SACRe (Sciences, Art, Creation, Recherche), CNSAD

Marcus Borja, through the SACRe doctoral program, which he joined in 2014, performed in-depth analysis of fascinating topics, such as: to question the acoustic dimension and the musical approach of the theater through the chorality and vocality of the actors-performers, to privilege the listening, to scrutinize the rhythms, counterpoints and harmonies, as well at the level of the construction and the interpretation of the text to that of dynamics and scenic movements...

A doctorate of art and creation

The work context offered by SACRe matched my expectations: a decidedly artistic curriculum combining the tools and the rigor of the research with the scenic and performative creation.

For three years under the direction of Jean-François Dusigne (professor of performing arts, theater, ethnoscenology at University Paris 8) and the supervision of Sylvie Deguy (lyric artist and singing professor at CNSAD), Marcus Borja continued exploration of theory and theatrical practice through a thesis entitled Poétiques de la voix et espaces sonores. La musicalité et la choralité comme bases de la pratique théâtrale (Poetics of the voice and sound Spaces: Musicality and chorality as bases of theatrical practice). 
"I chose to join the SACRe course, not really because of "doctorate ", but because it is based on "art and creation" explains Marcus Borja. "Indeed, motivated by my artistic career, my interest in teaching and transmission and my desire to develop and share a path of critical reflection in parallel and in resonance with the research done on the set and in the rehearsal room, I was convinced that the work context offered by SACRe matched my expectations: a decidedly artistic curriculum combining the tools and rigor of research with scenic and performative creation.
Through SACRe, I developed a multidisciplinary research project, at the crossroads of theory and artistic practices, that calls for a variation and alternation of its supports and its tools. Thus, rather than prioritizing or delimiting the spaces of "theory" and "practice," the theory here can only be conceived as a structuring and relativization of a concrete practice, and practice as a motion of theoretical abstractions, crossing and challenging one another.
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SACRe is also a unique interdisciplinary laboratory (EA 7410) dedicated to creators and one of the key elements of Université PSL. SACRe brings together five great schools of art and creation and the ENS for creators and researchers to invent and explore together the common territories of research and creation. The laboratory hosts established artists, creators, composers, directors, designers, visual artists, as well as theorists in exact sciences and in the humanities and social sciences. Each SACRe PhD thesis thus consists of a creation of works and the implementation of a reflective approach based on theoretical and scientific fields.

 

SACRe est aussi un laboratoire (EA 7410) interdisciplinaire unique dédié aux créateurs et l’un des éléments phares de l’Université PSL. Réunissant cinq grandes écoles d’art et de création et l’ENS, son ambition est de permettre aux créateurs et aux chercheurs d’inventer et d’explorer ensemble les territoires communs de la recherche et de la création. Il réunit artistes confirmés, créateurs, compositeurs, metteurs-en-scène, designers, plasticiens, tout autant que des théoriciens en sciences exactes, humaines et sociales. Chaque thèse du doctorat SACRe consiste ainsi en une création d’œuvres et la mise en œuvre d’une démarche réflexive s’appuyant sur des champs théoriques et scientifiques.

Les Bacchantes, d'après Euripide, par Marcus Borja dans le cadre de sa thèse au programme doctoral PSL SACRE (CNSAD)

The thesis jury in the dark

Marcus Borja's research work led to three stage creations at CNSAD (professional acting school): Théâtre (2015); Intranquillité (2016); and Bacchantes (2017). Together, and through multiple experiments, they highlight the essentially musical nature - especially with regard to time-rhythm and choral harmony – of the principles underlying the organization and accomplishment of the theatrical phenomenon.
The defense was an opportunity to present a synthesis of this research work via a choice of live performances with actors-singers and scenarios by plunging, for example, the jury in the dark.

"With the agreement of my director and my co-director of research and the complicity of a choir of 38 outstanding artists , I intended to go beyond the mere quotation of examples: I wanted to “perform” them. And this is for two reasons. First, the very purpose of the SACRe doctorate is to reinterpret the forms and codes of art research through art. It is therefore natural that I extend this "vocation" to the form and the same codes of the thesis defense, just as I did for the conception of the volume that I submitted to the jury: rather than a thesis, I made a book of art. Then, I consider that a course that was choral from the beginning to the end of this adventure could not end with a solo defense. It would be irrelevant and unnatural. So I chose to present some excerpts from two of the three shows from this research project: Theater and Bacchantes – unfortunately, the scenic and technical device of Intranquility did not allow a satisfactory restitution here."

 

 Extract of one of the performances presented during the defense, ® Thomas Vauthier

19 SACRe thesis defenses

Created in 2012, the SACRe doctoral program brings together 53 PhD students and 19 new Doctors. Here is the list of the last defenses of this autumn 2017 with a concentration theater, design, cinema, music, and visual arts.

Marie-Luce Nadal, EnsAD, October 9th, 2017
Title: De lents semencements (Slow seeds).
Direction: Nadeije Laneyrie Dagen (ENS-SACRe) and Eduardo Wesfreid (ESPCI).

Marcus Borja, CNSAD, December 1st, 2017
Title: Poétiques de la voix et espaces sonores : La musicalité et la choralité comme bases de la pratique théâtrale (Poetics of the voice and sound spaces: Musicality and chorality as bases of theatrical practice)
Direction: Jean-François Dusigne (Paris 8) and Sylvie Deguy (CNSAD).

Esther Jacopin, La Fémis, December 2, 2017
Title: La continuité stéréoscopique : correspondances et discontinuité (Stereoscopic continuity: correspondences and discontinuity).
Directors: Giusy Pisano (ENS Lyon), Sabine Lancelin (La Fémis) and Jeanne Guillot (stereographer).

Augusta Danner, EnsAD, December 4, 2017
Title:  Architecture et socialité. Le design architectural d’une école nationale supérieure d’art et de design : l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsAD Paris). Une analyse empirique par la sociologie de l’architecture. (Architecture and sociality. The architectural design of a national school of art and design: the National School of Decorative Arts (EnsAD Paris). An empirical analysis by the sociology of architecture).
Directors: Marc Crépon (ENS) and Emmanuel Mahé (EnsAD-SACRe).

Ianis Lallemand, EnsAD, December 5th, 2017
Title: Matière en acte : les rapports entre conception et matérialité dans la production matérielle numérique (Matter in action: the relationship between design and materiality in digital material production).
Directors: Antoine Picon (ENPC, GSD) and Samuel Bianchini (EnsAD-SACRe).

Romain Bigé, ENS, December 8th, 2017
Title: Le partage du mouvement. Une philosophie des gestes avec le Contact Improvisation (Sharing the movement. A philosophy of gestures with Contact Improvisation).
Directors: Renaud Barbaras (Paris 1).

Jennifer Douzenel, Beaux-Arts, Dcember 11th, 2017
Title: Mesurer le Monde (Measuring the World).
Directors: Michel Verjux (Paris 1 - artist) and François-René Martin (Beaux-Arts of Paris).

Lia Giraud, EnsAD, December 12th, 2017
Title: L’œuvre-processus. Pratiques dialogiques entre biologique et technique, vers une écologie de l’oeuvre (The Work-Process. Dialogical practices between biological and technical, towards an ecology of the work).
Directors: Samuel Bianchini (EnsAD-SACRe), Thibaud Coradin (Collège de France) and Claude Yéprémian (Museum of Natural History).

Laura Porter, Beaux-Arts, December 13th, 2017
Title: Royal Secrets in the Queen's Fat Body.
Directors: Daniel Milo (EHESS) and Dominique Figarella (Beaux-Arts of Paris).