Jake Mace
We last caught up with Mille Zhong and Alissia Pervozvanski-Dangles ahead of the first London performance of their celebration of daddy issues, queer friendships, Communist history… and multilingual forgiveness Le Grand Soir back in April of this year. The France-based duo, performing under the name 88 mètres/seconde, are now bringing the same piece to Voila! Theatre Festival tomorrow, bringing with them a deluge of physical theatre, singing rituals, Russian pickles, Chinese jokes, and dramatic PowerPoints all in the aim of ‘multilingual forgiveness’.
We caught up with them for a pixelated pint to find out more about the journey they’ve been on with the show since.
You can catch Le Grand Soir as part of Voila! Theatre Festival in London at the Etcetera Theatre on Saturday 8th November at 3pm and Sunday 9th November at 1pm (60mins). Tickets (£15 / £10 conc.) are available through the Voila! Theatre Festival Online Box Office.
Jake: Hi Mille and Alissia! We last caught up with you ahead of your performance of Le Grand Soir at SHIFT+SPACE in April. Remind us what the show is about and how did the performance go?
Mille & Alissia: Hi Jake! So nice to talk again! When we first had a chat about Le Grand Soir back in April, we used a lot of big words like “Performance Art, Communism, Intergenerational Trauma and Daddy Issues”, because we didn’t know exactly how much of what would go where.
Now we can tell you what the show is actually about: queer, specifically lesbian friendships, communist history, (un)forgiveness… and still daddy issues – that one was at the core of our work process for this show, and still stands! The performance at Shift+Space went very well, especially after the second performance where we had the chance to do a post show discussion including French and Russian speaking people.
It was very moving to listen to their feedback, and we really felt like it created a very intimate a safe place for them to talk about and share their own stories, family issues, and how sometimes forgiveness can be a very hard and painful process.
Jake: How did the show come to be performed at Voila! Festival?
Alissia: A few month ago, a friend who lives in London told us about the Voilà Festival. We felt like we connected a lot to the essence of the festival, as we perform in four different languages and we describe ourselves as multidisciplinary artists. After that, on Sunday 15th June Mille filled in the application form on Eventotron and today we are very happy to say that we got in!
Mille: We’ve been on quite the journey since the first showcases at Shift+Space! Following the lovely and super helpful feedback we got there, from audience members but also from the Theatre Deli team itself, we went back to work in France. Summer came and we felt ready for some more performance crash tests, so we applied to two festivals that we had heard of: the Voilà Festival, and the Lambeth Fringe. We had the incredible joy of getting in both festivals, and so we planned a preview of the show at the Lambeth, and the premiere at the Voilà!
Having personally worked with the Bread & Roses Theatre team before, for their V-Day monologues last year, I was super excited to discover The Lambeth Fringe, their festival. We had the pleasure of performing at The Glitch, a well-known queer venue, this October, and it was thrilling for us to test some new performance materials, as well as actually performing the entire show for the first time. We had an incredible audience response, lovely interactions with other Lambeth companies, as well as a short list nomination for The Glitch Awards! Energized by the fringe, we went back to rehearsals rooms (in Paris, Lyon, and London) and now we’re premiering the show at the Etcetera Theatre for the Voilà, as well as already planning the next steps!
Jake: What will be the first thing the audience sees, feels, and hears as they enter the space?
Mille & Alissia: See: Ella, our fantastic accomplice for this show, opening the doors for Alissia to enter with the audience and join Mille, Russian pickles in hand (the famous ones we keep talking about in the promo of the show!), in welcoming the audience into the space.
Feel: Communist fever. (We’re joking. Or are we?)
Hear: They will hear an incredible YouTube Metal Version of the Chinese March 娘子军连歌 Detachment of Women Song, which is originally a song from the Red Detachment of Women 红色娘子军, a Chinese revolutionay ballet/opera that premiered in 1964 – one of the eight “model operas” engineered by Jiang Qing during the Cultural Revolution.
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Alissia: As the performance grows, I’d love to give the audience even more perspective about relationships, how politics affect the way we talk to each other, stand next to each other. I hope telling our story can also be a way to say how healing queer friendships can be: that we are a big and beautiful community of people who share a common fight and that love, any love is what matters today.
Mille: I hope the audience takes away sparkling joy, a hint of sadness, a lot of questions and a bit of quiet too – the one that comes after facing an emotional hardship, understanding it deeper, and if not coming to terms with it, at least compromising with it. I also hope the audience takes home feelings, images, bits of words and warmth (metaphorical and literal), and a little bit more of an understanding of the complexity and beauty of the mixed-race and/or migrant family experience – not in a fetishizing way, but in a “this is the shit that we have to deal with and we do” way.
Jake: With Voila! Festival 2025 just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Alissia: I’m very excited about our premiere, see how we manage to stick together all the pieces of the puzzle. We pushed ourselves to share even more intimate parts of our lives, which allows us to connect closer to people I think. Also, I love the sarcastic humor we added to the show and I cannot wait to see how the audience will react to it!
Mille: I’m so excited to know that London is going to be buzzing with multilingual shows, with migrant stories and BIPOC experience at the forefront of the festival. I think there’s an incredible community joy for me in being part of that festival, as it also allows Alissia and I to connect specifically with queer Chinese/Russians creatives. It feels special, and precious, to be seen and heard that way, and that’s the reason why we’re creating this show in the UK (where we are not currently based).
Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Mille & Alissia: We already said a strong black tea last time, so this round we’re gonna go with kvas: a Russian, fermented, sparkling, and slightly alcoholic beverage, that was always in stock at Alissia’s nan house.
A reminder, you can catch Le Grand Soir as part of Voila! Theatre Festival in London at the Etcetera Theatre on Saturday 8th November at 3pm and Sunday 9th November at 1pm (60mins). Tickets (£15 / £10 conc.) are available through the Voila! Theatre Festival Online Box Office.
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