Portrait

„Chacun appelle barbarie ce qui n’est pas de son usage. (…) Nous pouvons donc bien les appeler barbares, eu égard aux règles de la raison, mais non pas eu égard à nous, qui les surpassons en toute sorte de barbarie“

Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592), Les Essais, I, 31

The Collectif Barbare was founded in 2006 after the musician, composer, performer and director Astride Schlaefli was awarded the 2nd prize at PREMIO.


The Collectif Barbare is a flexible ensemble of professional musicians, performers and multimedia artists from Switzerland, Germany, France und Ungary that carries out projects related to new musical theatre (neues Musiktheater), as well as performance art, interventions and installations. All of these are staged indoors or in the public space.

The Collectif Barbare realizes a number of its projects in a participatory mode with non-professionals of the scene.

Music and a reflection on the human condition are always at the heart of the work of the Collectif Barbare. Each project asks questions about the structure and functioning of a society and its people. What are its shortcomings and merits? How heavy do society and its codes weigh on the individual? Under what conditions and circumstances does violence occur? Who defines what is civilized and what is not?
The Collectif Barbare explores the concepts of “common sense”, “civilization” and “morality” in the light of an analysis that gives pride of place to poetic and offbeat images. These are productions that align sincerity and emotion as they play in the troubled waters between the private and the performance.

The Collectif Barbare holds out a mirror to its audience in which each of us can recognize ourselves.