Are you therefore ?

En bref

On stage, 10 to 16 people some of whom we know are not dancers and a marked dance floor without any visible coherence.
The group follows the marks. Little by little it organises itself by following the tracks. Sometimes it’s difficult. The video screen shows us their faces underlining the crossings and sweeping encounters: the non-dancers are concentrated on the game. The rules of the game are sometimes clear, sometimes difficult to make out.
Two other people progress in the group, manipulating the marks reconnecting or disconnecting from the group; those two are dancers.
The moving gives way to movements: the group is attentive. The choreographic narration casually offers several situations.




En détail

 

Origins of the piece

“Are you therefore the only spectator of your choreographies?” is a question that David Rolland is often asked. Indeed, since 2004 David Rolland writes booklets that he gives out to the audience come to participate in his pieces. Hence the pieces The Readers and It’s good to be somewhere else as well invited the audience to bodily experience being a dancer by following the instructions in the booklets.
The collective choreographies conceived by the choreographer were always meant to be physical moment experienced within the group and not to be looked at. With Are you, therefore..? Returns to a classical frontal frame, but by inviting professional dancers and non-dancers into the same scenic set once again he clouds the issue. It’s like a part of the audience becoming actors. The volunteers become dancers for a while enabling a reflection on the dancing body to emerge. 
Hence Are you, therefore…? continues to nurture his essential artistic preoccupation: illustrating bodies in everyday life, dancing.


Putting in motion

So as to be able to direct the non-dancers, one of the issues at stake in Are you, therefore ?, driving choreographic forces were constructed to enable dance to emerge and to produce different images of the group. The non-dancers follow a very precise score and spatial, sonic and visual indications guide them throughout the performance.
The dancers’ score counterbalances the group creating strong individualities and “disturbing” the overall movement.

 

 

 

 

 


The choreographic carpets

The choreographic carpets are the cornerstones of Are you, therefore…?
First of all the choreograph imagined 3D choreographic paths which were drawn with the help of a computer program on to a flat surface and then were applied to tarpaulin. A quantity of volunteers tested them and they were constantly modified before the choreographer found the right version enabling a fluid movement of the ensemble. The last version was printed on cloth carpets spread out on stage.

 


The participants

The organiser catering for the show recruits the 10 or 16 participants.
They must form a group of adults who already have something in common: the same profession, practise sport or hobby…preferably a mixed group, with a variety of ages.
What’s the most important is that they are clearly non-dancers, with no previous practise in dance.
To take part they have a six-hour “training” course where they learn the “rules of the game” Are you, therefore…?

Distribution

Conception : David Rolland
Performers : Valeria Giuga, David Rolland and 10 or 16 « prepared spectators »
Assistant : Claire Pollet
Set design : Stéphane Pauvret
Light and lighting design : Sylvie Debare
Sound and sound design : Roland Ravard
Video programming/projection design : Olivier Heinry.

Partners : Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - DRAC des Pays de la Loire (a subsidy for choreographic companies), Ville de Nantes, Conseil Régional des Pays de la Loire, Conseil Général de Loire-Atlantique et Ville de Saint-Herblain.
Production : association ipso facto danse
Co-production : L’intervalle / Noyal-sur-Vilaine, Onyx / scène conventionnée danse à Saint–Herblain, Scènes de Pays des Mauges - La Loge / Beaupreau.

Production : association ipso facto danse ;

Co-production : L'intervalle / Noyal-sur-Vilaine, Onyx / scène conventionnée danse à Saint-Herblain, Scènes de Pays des Mauges - La Loge / Beaupreau.

En images