Show project « Groin » produced by the “Compagnie d’en face”

Second “5 senses for kids Foundation” winning project of the 2023 educational research prize for an educational project

Project objectives

• The project aims to raise awareness and stimulate the olfactory sense of children aged 1 to 4, and those accompanying them.
• GROIN will be a live show, in which everyone can take part and thus experience smelling, sniffing, licking odorous elements. It’s an olfactory spectacle!
• GROIN will be a so-called “all-terrain” show, allowing us to meet little ones, in nurseries, daycare centers, small nursery sections, and libraries!

But why a scent show for little ones?

Smell is the earliest sense in babies!

It’s time to create an odor library that will follow the child all his life.

From 0 to 2 years old, children are curious and adventurous! Subsequently, it will be more likely to reject new aromas and new perceptions. The diversity of odors smelled in the early years is therefore crucial.

An awakened sense of smell leads to the pleasure of taste…

The “Nez en herbe” association has highlighted the importance of olfactory education, they work for the integration of olfactory awareness into school programs, from nursery and nursery school. Their reasoning goes further: smell is the first step towards a healthy diet and therefore good health.

“The ideal age for developing the sense of smell is 0 to 2 years old,” says Félicie Codron, olfacto-therapist.

Project intention

What would our cities look like if we humans had snouts? Would there even be cities? Or just forests and flowery fields as far as the eye can see? Smell, among us humans, is this sense that is shunned, little stimulated, under considered. Perhaps this helped shape our world of tar?

To allow ourselves to transform our living spaces, we offer an immersive and ambulatory experience, putting the bodies of the spectators at the center of the dramaturgy.
GROIN is a show featuring a half-man, half-animal clown who sees the world through his nose. His adventures will be our discoveries.

Raw products to explore: fennel, celery, lavender… Scents diffused, which fill the air and question our senses. It’s a soundtrack in dialogue with the actress who will put encounters with smells into poetry.

In this sanitized world, how do smells create language and how do they make our bodies move?

Research & creation

Mobile residence: wander freely in the subject to explore

From September to December 2023, GROIN was in mobile residence, aboard the Culture Truck of Anis Gras-Le lieu de l’Autre. Twice a month “the Culture Truck sets its sights outside” to meet residents of the Jean Macé district of Arcueil. Thanks to an odor library, we approach smells and the memories they carry. How can we put into words the traces of smells in our memory? This harvest of words nourishes times of creation.

In-situ time: observing toddlers in the places where they are welcomed

The in-situ times allow the children to be stimulated with smells, to observe their reactions, their interactions and also to show them extracts from the show in progress. Their presence makes these ideas evolve, and nourishes the time on set. These experiences took place in the small section classes of the Maryse Bastié nursery school in Romainville (whose educational project around food is demanding: 100% homemade, 100% organic canteen), and for the children of the François Trubert nursery in Arcueil. More recently, in Villiers-le-Bel and Gonesse.

Specific creative times: creating as close as possible to little ones

The Pépite system of the ACTA Company hosted GROIN’s first week of residency from November 27 to December 1, 2023. GROIN will soon be in residence at the Théâtre du Parc, in the Bois de Vincennes. The Dunois Theater is joining forces with La Compagnie d’en Face to apply for Art for Growing, an artistic residency program in a daycare center run by the City of Paris for 2024-2025. These nursery visits will allow the creation to be finalized.

Impacts of the project  

Parents, early childhood professionals, and the artistic team can measure the impact of the project during daycare residencies.

We are in dialogue with Arnaud Leleu, researcher at the University of Dijon, head of the “Olfactory Cognition & Communication in Development” team. Once we create the show, we will work with its teams to determine how it can be used to collect data.