Cross-continental laptop dancing
TARRYN Alberts blows a kiss to a dancer. He responds enthusiastically. But he is not physically on stage at The Wits Theatre, in Joburg.
This member of the Yann Lheureux Company is in the Pavillon Noir Theatre, in Aixen-Provence. Choreographer Lheureux’s aesthetic collision between the real and the virtual dancing body was in full swing.
It has taken three years of experimentation in Korea and various African, Indian Ocean and European countries to produce the three interactive Macadam Instinct Digital Stage world premiere performances staged on November 7 and 8.
Seven dancers on each continent executed the same choreography as the choreographer, in tandem with network transmission specialist Ivan Chabanaud, who created their digital stage in cyberspace.
For at least 20 minutes towards the end of the scheduled hour the internet connection showing the French dancers (and their audience) on a split screen above the action, wasn’t working. They appeared as mobile micro dots signalling the dangers of how technology can
MACADAM INSTINCT DIGITAL
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dehumanise and neutralise.
Yet there were incredible moments when this exploration of what is, and can be, synthesised as dancers of different ages (20s to 40s), races, cultural and dance backgrounds embodied the flotsam and jetsam of urban realities.
The global citizens ran, jogged, rolled, spun and articulated their differently trained bodies in a race for survival.
They also made images and wrote personal messages on flash cards. Alberts (exuding the anarchic energy of someone who has just toured with Die Antwoord) announced in writing “I am human. Half Porra. Half Khoi”.
Textures of artistic expression, mixed in with manipulated prerecorded and live imagery (on the digital screen), create fluid layers of disconcerting visual experience.
In essence Yann Lheureux and his co-conspirators offer the theatrical equivalent of parkour (the inner city sport of traversing