Art vivant & Art Innovant
37 rue Pierre Point 77127 Lieusaint
UNDERGROUND Sugar
Avec Joséphine Terme, Jonathan Genet
Et Marie-Pierre Génovèse, Axel Beaumont, Giovanni Vitello, Gloria Aras Gassent, Serge Lazar, Blandine Laignel, Vincent Kessler et des danseurs et danseuses de l’Académie Internationale de Danse de Paris
Avec la participation amicale de Jean Guizerix
Finalist for the NUMIX Prize - International Experience
THE DANCING PLAGUE
AN IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE UNDER A DOME
Julie Desmet Weaver / Eugénie Andrin / Claire Allante
The audience is invited to enter a dome - like a giant dancefloor - to discover the story of Enneline, the first woman to be swept away by the "dancing plague", and her lover Melchior, who tries, through the city, to save her. Immersed in this space, the spectators are gradually carried away by this narrative round which mysteriously mixes filmed and virtual bodies. Encouraged to interact physically, the spectator enters the dance and participates in the collective animation of this living and fantastic fresco.
Duration of the experience: 25mn
Production : Tchikiboum, Sarah Arnaud
Co production : Small Creative, Voyelle Acker, Vincent Guttmann
Distribution : Le Hubblo
Director : Julie Desmet Weaver
Choregrapher : Eugénie Andrin
Artistic univers : Claire Allante
Production partners : Underground Sugar + Théâtre national de Chaillot + Scène nationale de Sénart / Lieusaint
Project supported by the CNC - Fonds Expérience numériques, par the Région Sud // Writing residency _ MAGELIS and Martell Foundation // Movements writing residency _ Entre-pont Nice, 2021
Photos small creative
Claire Allante Julie Desmet Weaver Eugénie Andrin
JULIE DESMET WEAVER _ DIRECTOR
To create this 360° immersive experience, which recounts the episode of the dancing epidemic of 1518 and the story of the couple Enneline and Melchior, I drew my inspiration from the dances macabre of the Middle Ages and those long, joyful farandoles that never end. By bringing together under a single 360° dome the filmed bodies of the performers, the motion-captured virtual bodies of the skeletons and the carnal bodies of the spectators, I'd like to initiate a continuous, circular movement: a festive round, questioning our ancestral, instinctive and organic fears in the face of death.
My aim is to illustrate the vertigo provoked by the imbalance of the men and women in this political tale (?), to recount this dangerous swaying, this oscillation of bodies that gradually recognize and respond to each other in unison, before tipping over entirely into a dark carnival. Re-interrogating the place of bodies at the heart of the city.
EUGÉNIE ANDRIN _ CHOREOGRAPHER
The choreography shows the slide from a light, joyful dance into the hell of an obligatory farandole. Foot tapping to a haunting rhythm, dislocated limbs, suffocating bodies, crowds of people, incessant whirling... all express the ambiguity between the comfort of trance as an escape and the pain of a dance that leads to exhaustion.
The dancers involved in the experiment each have a strong and unique physical and choreographic signature that it seems essential to preserve, in order to avoid any formatting that a common technique might have inoculated. In fact, their singularity is a precious asset, which should be highlighted so as not to interfere with the natural movement of the dancers. For it was instinctively, without any rules, that the crazed inhabitants began to dance.
CLAIRE ALLANTE _ ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
The story begins in a stifling atmosphere. A strange fog fills both the interiors and the streets. A few glimpses of light cut silhouettes through windows and buildings. Right from the start, this blurring of reality heralds a dark omen. As the story progresses, the image begins to deteriorate. Like old film, eaten away by chemistry and time, organic matter nibbles away at the scenery and bodies. In the final section, a chaotic effect is created by the superimposition of images, an explosion of supernatural colours, a reference to rave parties.