¡COU COU!

Okay, we are Soiftotale, we are a Circus Companie, and…. we created this… like a dream… we make it true the year 2021, after we finish the school (ESAC).

We met each other in ESAC, a circus school in Brussels, and after all the period of working in the school we wanted to keep working together after the school.

that’s the dream of, like, being thirsty for more and more after finishing ESAC, that is why our name is SOIFTOTALE, “total thirst” in english.

How many are we?

We are 16 on stage, and we have two different shows. Actually, one inside show, DIVE IN, with 16 people, and another outdoor show, PROLOGUE, with 11 people.

we had already finish DIVE IN in october, and PROLOGUE we hope to tour as well next year, we have now the help of AB JOY , diffusion pathway (https://www.abjoy.be/spectacles/prologue/) and Zoe in the administration, she is our angel, that help us with all the administration things, bureaucracy, and this kinds of stuff, because, as you imagine, is really difficult for sixteen people to organize all, so we need to be really precise.

That’s why we always split the tasks.

ABOUT AB JOY , they choose our project for the street between different projects of different people. And they will be with us making the diffusion of the show for five years so… is kind of a huge help for the compagnie, because normally the diffusion we do it ourselves, we had no one to do that, and now that we win this route of diffusion, they will do it for us (the diffusion), and we hope it will make the show go out the street much more.

How we organize it

We have a costume group

We have a diffusion for DIVE IN group

We have a residence and logistical group, for all the food stuff and all the residences and a number of different tasks.

So Small groups inside the company. to make things happen, for more organization and efficacy.

We also are 16 people, we have a lot of different disciplines, We have Chinese pole behind the camera right there, we have hand to hand and  hand balancing to my left out of the camera as well, we have jugglers, we have Aerial Hoop, Aerial Rope, Teeterboard, Trapeze, Aerial Straps, smoke manipulation, we have live music in the insideshow, so we have musicians, we have also one guy that play with the wip, and i think that’s all the disciplines we have.

And we are from around the world, we have people from germany, argentina, portugal, brazil, chile, france, mexico, costa rica, new zealand, belgium and spain. And we are a belgium company and there is only one belgium in the company, so random funny facts!

So we have twelve differents nationalities

Something important about the creative universe:

It depends a lot on the show we have, we have different styles as we have different persons in the collective. BUT DIVE IN, it was created more, in kind of a deep kind of…. Like falling into the dreams of someone, that was the idea of the director. He was a performer, so it is really random the show DIVE IN, I don’t know how to explain it really well. Because It is really divining into something, into deep things and it shows all the faces (force collective) of one collective, so that’s mean how we are being together, being lonely, the good things and the bad things, and the things that we don’t really see inside of a collective, so this is the direction that DIVE IN is taking and the other one, PROLOGUE, is more joyful.

Yeah, but all shows have this energy of group, of collective , this force that moves us to construct the show, so we are almost all the time in the scene, we have this thing really presence with us during the whole show.

ADVICES! to the people that want to create a company, what you should do before doing it…. If you are alone, and you are just the artists, it will be tough, it will take a lot of energy, and I encourage you, we encourage you to do it because it is a super nice feeling but it is a really heavy work, it is really peaceful… no peaceful kind of, you feel really well when you see it working, and your dream is…like coming true. So I encourage people to do it.

We are together in the project and try to be together as well as humans, because if don’t, does not work, she said, that if we don’t listen to each other, wich happen a lot in a big group, tensions comes by their on, and we don’t want tensions in something like this because it makes things harder.

A lot of talk! Talking is really important.

A lot of meetings, a lot of being, i don’t know, trust the other.

Learn to listen!

What else, what else, be patience.

BE HONEST!

Yeah OMG hahaha

And something which is not always the easiest way, because of course, making your own company, is starting for zero, if you don’t have partners or if you have like nothing created by a director who is already known, so is really being patience and put the wood on the fire and you have to blow it everyday to make the fire (be alive).

Is a kind of investment, because we don’t receive things really fast, we need to wait to see the things we put in the ground grow.

We need to believe in our work, and believe in our partners that everything goes on and we will be successful in the end.

And don’t be scared to ask for partners, like co-production, subvencions.

The are all humans.

yeah yea, OMG, you are so amazing.

Because, in the beginning you are afraid to ask for money or for something (help), But then you realize that the people that give you subvencions and things like this,

they are all humans like you, and you really need to go for it.

If you are like forty people in the company and you need a subvencion of like hundred thousand euros, and makes like it sounds impossible to have, if you make a really good dossier or if you really go for it, if you really believe in your project they will believe it as well,l so, for us it was the big step to have the help of LATITUD 50, they bought our premiere, which we did it, she said last october, and they help us with a huge co-production, and then after this… UP! Circus and performing also help us and Centre des Arts Scenics, and maybe I am forgetting, Theatre National from Belgium as well , so little by little we are spreading kind of…

I just want to add (????) , because we started one year and a half before we start to work actually and it is really really important thing to do is write the dossier, start to talk with people before and much before, because all the programations, start one year before it really happen so.. production need to be do with time

How do you describe the daily work in the company? How do you work day by day?

we don’t see each other day by day to start, which is amazing, imagine. But I think everyone of us, we always take part in the work, for example Beatrice sends emails for the other shows Ana Julia is always making things, we kind of try (????) to make things possible…..

so it ‘s fine.

But when we are in residence, the day by day changes, because we are all together; and there we have to be really careful and there we have to be really attentive with the rhythm we have.

Because in the collective, we have different rhythms of working, and we learn after like six weeks of residence together, we started to learn how we really work in these conditions.

And it is different from the school (ESAC), we started with the school rhythm (?) and actually it’s not like that at all, not in real life, because we have a lot of other things to do as well so we need to balance with the residence and with the social relations, because if we are not good with our partners , ¿How we will we work?

yeah… it is important

And also , because one of the questions was.. If this is the only project we have to survive?

And no no no no no ! we don’t survive yet with this, we will!

Actually we survived! but we don’t live from it yet

So I think most of the people of our collective, we have little work together.

For example: Anna Julia and Beatrice have a duo, and Sofia and another base have another Duo. So it is like different formats of duos, trios. Like groups who make different projects.

And other people working in solos looking for cabarets.

But for the moment it is kind of…  we accepted that Soiftotale is still growing so is a baby who is walking and BUM! Falling. So we will learn how to run really fast I think, and we hope so. But for the moment we still have different projects.

Where do we see ourselves in 3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years?

in three weeks, in the National theater (hahahahaha)

its true, it’s true

So in two weeks, we will see each other where?

National theater of Belgium*

to conclude the season of 2022

in two years is …?

2025 i think……

Maybe doing another show, in three years , yeah, starting to create a new show.

And keep coming with PROLOGUE, the one of the street, the street show. We keep going like for more less five years with AB JOY, platform of diffusion. And probably we are going to try another show, another form.

Maybe with the same people inside, we don’t know,  maybe changing people

(…)

But in three years, for sure we are still alive, we are still breathing, and Soiftotale will be there…

I don’t know how, or where exactly, but we will be there.

So see you in five years then!

How whe describe the project in four words?

(…)

Four words

Words

Concepts (One word each other!)

yes one word each other

We are four, two in the camera, and two others, not in the camera.

so…

Collective

Energy

Community

Deepness

….

What ‘s deepness?

So we have Energy, Community, collective and deepness

Let ‘s go for it!.

Thanks for watching!!