La Prophétie du Papier, un spectacle hommage à la tradition papetière

After several years’ rehabilitation work, the site of the LANA paper mill, converted into a cultural venue, now hosts exhibitions, performances, talks, etc. An association, the Confrérie des Marqueurs d’Eau-Site Lana, coordinates the different activities intended to perpetuate the memory of local papermaking.

For the last few weeks the vaulted rooms of the old LANA paper mill have served as the backdrop for a show consisting of dance, theatre and music entitled La Prophétie du Papier (The Prophecy of Paper). The show is the creation of choreographer and dance teacher Lydie FORNAGE and director Amélie ARMAO.  A succession of “roaming” sketches take the audience and the actors into all the nooks and crannies of the restored parts of the factory. These include the room where the sorters worked and the room that housed the machines that made paper for banknotes and railway tickets, among other things.

The show consists of an artistic and poetic immersion where the audience is swept along by the gestures of papermaking and discovers stories and anecdotes told by paper professionals and workers from the mills in the Vosges. A hundred dancers from the Académie de Danse in Épinal and fifteen actors from the theatre workshop at the Conservatoire Gautier in Épinal bring this very special show to life with vigour and humour: a fine tribute to the papermaking tradition of the Vosges, its history, its workers and its world-renowned papers.

ARCHES® is a partner of La Prophétie du Papier and supplied the Velin d’ARCHES® 300 gsm paper used to make the bridal gown and the origami figures seen in the show.