Collision(s) played to a packed house on 18 July in the Cour Minérale of Avignon University, as part of the Avignon Off Festival. After the curtain fell, to thunderous applause, many young members of the audience shared their impressions of the play.
18 July saw the very first performance of Catherine Tinivella-Aeschimann's play Collision(s) at the 59th Avignon Off Theatre Festival. Collision(s) is part of the Binôme project (see below), which is the brainchild of French theatre company Les sens des mots, in collaboration with Château Rouge - Scène conventionnée d'Annemasse.
Collision(s) arose from an encounter between playwright Catherine Tinivella-Aeschimann and particle physicist Yasmine Amhis (CNRS/CERN). It is not a didactic piece about science but an introspective, poetic journey revealing the resonances between scientific research and human experience. It explores, with strength and delicacy, the themes of matter, memory and identity through a fragmented narrative about a mother and her daughter, a to-do list, scientific inventories and personal reflections. Through this work, Catherine Tinivella-Aeschimann movingly reminds us that behind every scientific achievement lies a profoundly human story, which the medium of theatre is particularly well suited to telling.
Collision(s) will be performed at the Théâtre de la Reine Blanche in Paris on 24 September 2025, at the Château Rouge - Scène conventionnée d'Annemasse on 26 and 27 September 2025, and at the CERN Science Gateway on 5 March 2026.
| What is Binôme? The concept of Binôme is that of a playwright studying a researcher and then writing a play freely inspired by their encounter. The result is touching and often funny and offers a new way of looking at science and scientists. Binôme was launched in 2010 by theatre company Les sens des mots and has led to the creation of 64 plays, of which Collision(s) is the latest. "Binôme aims above all to bring together two people from entirely different walks of life who are passionate about each other's work. One is devoted to research, the other to writing. Binôme is a non-didactic way of discovering science and a rich source of inspiration for contemporary theatre. The product of the collision between these apparently so different universes is a rich and original piece of art. It's touching to see how nervous the two protagonists are, but once they've spent some time together they usually realise that their fields are driven by the same forces of intuition, doubt, hard work and passion. Binôme casts the spotlight on the poetry of science." Thibault Rossigneux Artistic director of Les sens des mots and designer of Binôme |
