héâtre-élévision

pseudo performance

Note of intention

Overlapping spaces The space invoked by the project is that of the boxes, nested one inside the other, that of the television giving room to a whole series of filmed spaces. The black box of the theatre, or the more reduced boxes, choreography always has a place in the symbolic interior of a television, but the scale keeps changing radically.

Hypnosis One comes to heatre – elevision once a year, but one finds there the comfort of an opium den. One has the right to a deserved drowsiness which is in no way detrimental to the process. The hypnotic release is borrowed from marginal television vocabulary: the test card. Target and talisman, it is the ideal fixed object. This object will be the recurring texture of the performance, indicating the super-programme aspect. The alternation of dance sequences and the test card will direct the drifting attention of the sleepy spectator.

Rhythm An archaic and irregular Russian rhythm which stops us from jumping when it is no longer there.

The crux I sense, without knowing how to explain it, that heatre - elevision invokes an essence of dance which has not yet been discovered, defined or written. As for risking the hermetic effect of an enclosed place for the dance, the theatre and the television, we come close to what threatens it physically: face and hand in univocal expression, positions from Western theatre which are too habitual. It could be that quite distorted things are unearthed through the open kinesiology, through the position of the lips or eyelids. It would not be a question of pulling a face but of opposing choreographic developments to a subtle chemistry of the tensions of tongue and voice. (Perhaps this is only one route, but this dance, articulated with the trick of the archaic and irregular Russian rhythm, should remain throughout the body).

Attention Our television set will be the subject of unusual attention. The television as an object is usually only there to bombard us with images, unless it is lying around neglected in exhibition spaces. In contrast, heatre - elevision organises a scenography for the object and the spectator is invited to an individual performance. The “representation” has a beginning and a duration, even though the spectator is free to leave, stifled by solitude, called to attend to other things.

Dancers You often see dancers on TV, don’t you?

Layers Choreographies overlapping other choreographies overlapping the test card of persistent sounds of overlapped choreographies. Sounds which already resonate with the movements to come, the choreographies which will soon appear on the screen. Within each layer, another layer. A stage fills, empties, a body is imprinted on a cubic block of earth, modern Russian music is sung, the performers dance to this Russian music, written for double basses, piano and mallets, a wild time is had with our faces (this is the theatre of the West).

Crux (continuation) To whet your appetite – it should be mentioned that a rabbit will be killed (for the ritual aspect) and that it will sometimes be as amorphous as the spectator.

The endogenous question What will remain of us, of our essences? Can one claim to be doing nothing more than choreography when (it cannot be denied), this is also about a film and a television?

Test card Test card rather than mirror! This could have been the title, in the name of the principal role … “Test card” or dance in orbit. But heatre - elevision, this sounds even more empty, you feel the poetic void, that the essence of the dance will colour. Nothing is mentioned about what the character of the project will be; there is no doubt that the project is special, grafted on to the norm.

Gravitation The idea of lying down comes from the fact that it is impossible to watch a western when you’re lying down: you can’t identify properly with the rider on his horse. Unless the horse and rider are lying down – this is what is proposed by heatre - elevision. And then? (the rider shows off less.)

Boris Charmatz