Uncanny Valley
Conception, creation & performance : Tawny Andersen & Alexandre Le Petit
Sound design : Alexandre Le Petit & Tawny Andersen
Light Design : Paul Chambers (CA), Alexandre Le Petit & Tawny Andersen
Conception, creation & performance : Tawny Andersen & Alexandre Le Petit
Sound design : Alexandre Le Petit & Tawny Andersen
Light Design : Paul Chambers (CA), Alexandre Le Petit & Tawny Andersen
Uncanny Valley examines the relationship between theatricality and performativity as well as the mechanisms at work in the construction and reception of meaning. Inspired by recent theorization of the notion of the performativity in critical theory, and specifically by the questioning of the relationship between corporality, language and identity, the work attempts to generate a 'polysemic virtuality' in order to question the relationship between subject and object, performer and audience. Engaging the participation of the spectator in generating sense and reconsidering the meanings of the multiplicity of sounds, images and signs proposed, the work concerns the problematic of the subjectivity of language and the esthetic process of recontructing a message.
Uncanny Valley relies on the understanding of identity as a fluid notion, as being performative as opposed to expressive. The solo begins with the rather impossible conception of a neutral or transparent body that can then be charged with innumerable characters, energies or qualities. In order to do this Uncanny Valley borrows elements from the cinematic universe, recalling identities from selected films from cinema history that constitute a kind of archive of our collective cultural memory. The body is thus performative in the sense that it has no ontological identity prior to this projection. The choreographic material is organized around the manipulation of these fragments of films, and similarly, the sound score is composed of the combination of such fragments of film sound tracks with other sounds generated by 'real' situations, (re)created in the context of the performance itself. As such the sound and movement are in a constant real-time dialogue, both being manipulated live in response to one another. The repetition and re-enactment of these citational, ritualized acts confronts us with the constructedness of identity and of reality, and the ultimate uncanniness of the performing situation
Uncanny Valley relies on the understanding of identity as a fluid notion, as being performative as opposed to expressive. The solo begins with the rather impossible conception of a neutral or transparent body that can then be charged with innumerable characters, energies or qualities. In order to do this Uncanny Valley borrows elements from the cinematic universe, recalling identities from selected films from cinema history that constitute a kind of archive of our collective cultural memory. The body is thus performative in the sense that it has no ontological identity prior to this projection. The choreographic material is organized around the manipulation of these fragments of films, and similarly, the sound score is composed of the combination of such fragments of film sound tracks with other sounds generated by 'real' situations, (re)created in the context of the performance itself. As such the sound and movement are in a constant real-time dialogue, both being manipulated live in response to one another. The repetition and re-enactment of these citational, ritualized acts confronts us with the constructedness of identity and of reality, and the ultimate uncanniness of the performing situation
Premiere, march 11-14th, 2010 Tangente Theater, Montreal (CA)
With the support of versonatura // pianofabriek // les bains :: connective
