Company founded in 1976, in Alsace, by Luc Amoros (Oran, Algeria, 1956) and Michèle Augustin (Strasbourg, France, 1956). In all its productions, the Amoros and Augustin Company creates a unique language based on moving images and live music.

After their first more classical productions (Püberg in 1981, Püberg et la Mégamort in 1984, Le Tragique Destin d’un héros de verre The Tragic Fate of a Glass Hero in 1987), these “presenters of shadows” integrate the visual arts, dance, and subsequently video into the manipulation of light. The screen becomes the focal point of their shows, where images of all kinds intermingle. Being particularly fond of distant and archaic cultures, they incorporate contemporary references into these. West African Mandingo legends inspired Sunjata (1989); music from Lapland, Le Chant de l’Ours (The Bear Song, 1993); adventure films, Señor Z (1991) and La Bounty (1996); Tristan and Isolde, Le Chant d’Essylt (The Song of Essylt, 1998) by Michel Cazenave.

Since 1999, the company has begun a series of cycles comprising various phases in the exploration of the world of images and their creation in plain view. The “Images Fugaces” (Fleeting Images) cycle consists of Monsieur Grant (1999); L’Oeil nu (The Naked Eye, 2002), a short play aimed primarily at children; 360° à l’ombre (360 Degrees in the Shade, 2002), a monumental fresco created for street performance around which the spectator can move about; and 361˚ Celsius (2002), a choreographed graphism performance about writing. The cycle of the “Papiers Froissés” (Crumpled Papers) regroups mild forms on the theme of shadows: La Nuit où tu m’aimeras (The Night You Will Love Me, 2003), Avant la Chute (Before the Fall, 2004), directed by Michèle Augustin, and Dernières nouvelles de mon ombre (Latest News from My Shadow, 2004), before the next cycle entitled “Ombres électriques” (Electric Shadows).

The creations of Amoros and Augustin – genuine poetic rituals – explore the magic of virtual images of yesterday and today, and question their appearance at the “exact point where the eye of the shadow puppeteer and the spectator meet”. Based in Alsace, the company contributes to artistic expression in schools. Since 2005, it produces the theatrical activities of the Halle de Meisenthal in Lorraine.

(See France.)