Madeleines
IMMERSIVE ART EXPERIENCE
Directed by Mélanie Esther Dorey
Madeleines is an immersive art experience rooted in the spectral world of Marcel Proust’s memory and
his love for composer Reynaldo Hahn, designed for the Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner in Paris.
Navigating the museum by candlelight, guests moved in silence through a sequence of poetic apparitions:
danced evocations of Reynaldo Hahn’s inner life, musical fragments echoing through the galleries,
intimate objects left behind like clues.
Blurring the line between reality and hallucination, Madeleines unfolded like a shared dream,
a space of sensory time travel, queer memory, and quiet transformation.
Creative Process and Experience Design
Designed as a site-specific performance, Madeleines was staged as a discreet promenade through the Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner.
The experience combined choreographed apparitions, fragmented text, and lyrical chant to evoke the fluid and fragile perception of time described in Proust’s work. The dramaturgy was deliberately porous: the past resurfaced, the present dissolved, and each visitor was left to make sense of the living ghosts they encountered.
Between performance art, immersive theatre, and conceptual curation, Madeleines was both a tribute to lost love and a séance, a candlelit invitation to drift between time, memory, and presence.
CREDITS
Directed by - Mélanie Esther Dorey
Cast - Sarah Adjou, Emilie Ducasse, Dorothée Lambert, Jyotsna Liyanaratne
Written by – Mélanie Esther Dorey & Michael Freudenthal
Narrative Design – Michael Freudenthal
Costume Design – Guenièvre Lafarge
An experience created in partnership with the Musée National Jean-Jacques Henner
