En–Knap & Fabien Prioville

Dancing Audience

60 min

#available for touring#co-productions

2023

This performance involves the use of VR headsets.

Dancing Audience is an interactive and immersive VR-piece that effortlessly takes the audience on a dynamic and reciprocal dance experience. As the audience puts on their VR glasses and explores the virtual realm, dancers guide them to interact with their movements. The audience is dancing, but dancing as if dancing dances the audience. The dancing gaze conditions the dancing audience. Virtuality is no opposition; virtuality is a condition. Virtuality of the gaze is a reality beyond technology. What does that say about technology? Technology alienates in as much as the way in which it is used alienates. At least as far as 'dancing audience' is concerned, the criticism that technology makes us 'together alone or alone together' is void; we are 'together together'. Intimacy.

Who dances the dancers? Who watches the watchers? Who dances, who watches?

Fabien Prioville is again in virtual reality's embrace. Unlike Rendez-Vous (2018), the company and audience, the one with headset, are immersed in pure virtuality, not the everyday, of strict, nonetheless playful self-contained choreography, from which an interactivity emerges, as if Pina Bausch came to life as a video game. Interactivity is not all participation. While virtuality embraces the gaze, the body opens up to participation, effortlessly. Participation participates the body. Participation, movements on the stage, are prompted by a series of VR dance films, prompt movements on the stage, establishing a shared physical language that morphs into a playful, nonetheless strict self-contained choreography. The collective embodiment blurs the boundaries between audience and dancers, creating a transformative experience beyond the performance. Does the body, gaze, reality need sovereignty? Does collectivity need sovereignty of the body, gaze, reality?

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I'm mostly interested in technology, which is in people's hands, which occupies most of our time. How does it affect our life, our relationships? If you put in the centre what people use, not what people know, suddenly, you touch a different audience.

Fabien Prioville

Virtual dancers dance. Physical watchers watch virtual dancers. Virtual dancers watch physical watchers. Physical watchers dance. Physical dancers watch physical watchers, watching virtual dancers, watching physical watchers. Physical dancers dance. Physical watchers watch physical dancers, watching physical watchers, watching virtual dancers, watching physical watchers. Virtual dancers dance. Physical watchers dance. Physical dancers dance.

Immersion into virtual space with head-mounted displays enables the gaze of the virtual, recorded choreography, but it also disables the gaze of the physical space, while opening up the virtual gaze of the mind and body into spontaneous, physical choreography in the space. The interactivity between virtual dancers and physical watchers with head-mounted displays binds with the interactivity between physical dancers and physical watchers without head-mounted displays. By way of interactivity and immersion, a spontaneous, physical choreography emerges out of the virtual, recorded choreography, in fact, a hybrid or synthesis of both, blurring the line dancer-watcher.

The audience is dancing, but dancing as if dancing dances the audience. But even before the audience is dancing, the gaze is dancing, moving on and away from reality to reality, from virtuality to physicality. The dancing gaze conditions the dancing audience. Virtuality is no opposition; virtuality is a condition. Virtuality of the gaze is a reality beyond technology. What does that say about technology? Technology alienates in as much as the way in which it is used alienates. At least as far as 'dancing audience' is concerned, the criticism that technology makes us 'together alone or alone together' is void; we are 'together together'. Intimacy.

press

Dancing Audience very clearly detects the feature of virtual reality that causes people the greatest distrust or fear: namely, its sophistic ability to manipulate meaning and to introduce a sense of false freedom (as it breaks the link between vision and the "objective world", thus stopping the innate organic synthesis of our sensory-perceptual system). In addition to using virtual technology in a highly original way, it touches upon some intuitions about the notion of freedom in the context of contemporary neoliberalism. In the footsteps of the play, one can trace an idea developed by the philosopher Byung-Chul Han in his book Psychopolitics: namely that "in neoliberalism, technologies of power take subtle forms. They do not directly seize the individual, but ensure that he internalizes power relations and subsequently interprets them as freedom.

Jaka Bombač, Neodvisni

bio

Fabien Prioville graduated at the Centre national de danse contemporaine (Cndc) in Angers. He had worked with Édouard Lock and his company La La La Human Steps in Montreal, before joining Philippe Blanchard in Stockholm. In 1999, he became a member of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, appearing in the repertoire, for instance, in Café Müller. He also performed in films, for instance, in Pedro Almodovar’s Talk to Her (2002), and Wim Wender’s Pina (2011). Since 2006, he has been working as a freelance dancer and choreographer, and has collaborated with names, such as Josef Nadj, Davis Freeman, Louise Lecavalier, Shutaro Oku, Hauschka, Tetro+A, Chris Cutler, or Michiel van Erp. In 2010, he founded his own dance company, and became a member of the iDAS NRW dance network. Since, he has created more than one production per year, and performed most of his work at Tanzhaus NRW in Düsseldorf. From virtual reality and modern technologies to exploring deeply personal and emotional fabric in all of us, the company’s work spans various mediums. Large-sized festivals, such as Lyon Dance Biennial, and Festival Tokyo, or Open Look St. Petersburg, as well as Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, have collaborated with the company in developing on-site VR dance films for venues and festivals.

credits

Concept and Choreography Fabien Prioville

Dancers and Performers En–Knap Group (Núria Capella, Mattia Cason, Tina Habun, Davide Lafabiana, Tamás Tuza, Carolina Alessandra Valentini) – live performance
fabien prioville dance company (Francesca Ciaffoni, Anna Süheyla Harms, Evan Schwarz, Tijana Prendović) – VR performance

VR Camera and Editing Christoph Vogel

VR Editing Omar Ismail

Dramaturgy Annette von Keudell

Lighting Design Špela Škulj

Costume Design Katarina Markov (Atelje d.o.o.)

Make-up and Hair Empera, Vanja Djuran

Photography and Video Lin Gerkman

Production En–Knap Productions and fabien prioville dance company

En–Knap Productions

Founder and artistic director Iztok Kovač

Managing director Marjeta Lavrič

Executive director and head of finance Julija Travančić

Rehearsal director Ana Štefanec Knez

Executive producer Karmen Keržar

Postproduction producer Nataša Ramovš

Communications strategist and editor Dražen Dragojević

Head of communications and creative content Valerija Intihar

Designer Marko Damiš

Programme organiser and coordinator Katja Gabrijelčič

Technical coordinator Jaka Šimenc

Technical team Omar Ismail, Leon Curk, Hotimir Knific, Gal Škrjanec Skaberne, Špela Škulj

En–Knap Productions and Španski Borci Cultural Centre (En–Knap Productions as administrator) are supported by: City of Ljubljana – Department of Culture, and Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia

fabien prioville dance company is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the Department of Culture of the City of Düsseldorf, the Sparkasse Düsseldorf Foundation, and the Department of Culture of the City of Wuppertal.