The World of Camping

What brings campers back to the same campground each summer, generation after generation? Why live outside for weeks or even months in such close quarters? The answer: friends, BBQ’s, dance nights, and games like pétanque, horseshoes, cards and bingo. A campground is a place to let loose and be yourself, because it’s finally summer. It’s place to hang out and enjoy, tease, tolerate, endure, or hug your neighbors. A place where human relationships—real ones—are fodder for clowning around. It’s a micro-society where Théâtre À Tempo’s world fits right in.

Our tools

Camping is set in a campground, more specifically in the space between two small trailers where neighboring campers meet each summer. The look and feel of the show and the objects used situate the story somewhere between the 1950s and the 1970s.

Clown

A clown is born from the fundamental aspects of an individual’s personality. It’s roots are found in each person’s unique expressions, posture, natural rhythm, naiveté, strengths and fragilities. À Tempo’s dramaturgy is moving and spot on because it is built around the very essence of its artists’ identities. Their natural comedy guides character development, influencing and adding precision to each show’s narrative arcs.

Music and Body Percussion

In Camping, music is played live on objects typically found in a campground. Our instruments range from kitchen utensils to household objects like hair dryers, soap bottles and dish gloves, a BBQ lid and grill, bicycle pumps, and other accessories. One of Théâtre à Tempo’s flagship disciplines—body percussion—is also featured in the show, along with a guitar, violin, double bass and a handful of other conventional instruments.

Circus

In Camping, we are looking to transform and repurpose traditional circus apparatuses and seamlessly incorporate them into our campers’ lives. 

In our campground, the base of our tents will be Cyr wheels.
We will balance and tiptoe along the clothesline to hang our clothes up to dry.

We will throw condiments from one trailer to the next when we cook on the BBQ.

Our Beach Volleyball will be more acrobatic than at the Olympics.

When the summer is done, we will pack up our folding chairs and picnic tables, throwing ourselves into the air once more before saying : goodbye friends, see you next year.