20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is a multidisciplinary show combining storytelling, music, and live painting. It recounts the main moments of Jules Verne's novel. The painting (liquid inks on a glass plate) is created live and projected onto a large screen. The music is played live on an immersive set of speakers. The text is read in voice-over.
Patrick Pleutin (painter, filmmaker, performer) and Xavier Garcia met a few years ago and had long been planning to create an immersive show featuring “live” music and painting.
They chose to work on the fantastical world of Jules Verne's novel “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” in which the character of Captain Nemo resonates today not only as a man rebelling against the world, but above all as the precursor of a new ecology of absolute respect for the earth and its oceans.
Patrick Pleutin works with extremely dense and colorful liquid inks, which he literally “sculpts” using brushes and scrapers on a glass table. The painting in motion and the gestures that bring it to life and renew it are projected in a spectacular fashion on a large screen. Xavier Garcia's music is also played live and broadcast on an immersive sound system.
The narration is in “voice-over”: it is recorded. The idea is that the viewer's gaze is entirely focused on the painting. The voice belongs to Kathleen Evin (whose magnificent tone could be heard on France Inter radio in her cult program “L'humeur vagabonde”). There is nothing to prevent us from imagining that Professor Aronnax is a woman.
- Audience: All ages 8 and up
- Creation: 2026
- Duration: Approximately 1 hour
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In partnership with Montalieu-Vercieu
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