Developed through a three-year process guided by choreographers Éric Minh Cuong Castaing and Aloun Marchal with dramaturg Marine Relinger, Vision is grounded in butoh and contact improvisation, respectively based on vision and touch. From these practices emerges a conception of presence that opens onto a plurality of equally valid forms of embodiment. Rather than privileging the dialogue between ability and disability or predefined modes of appearing, presence is envisaged as something negotiated through listening and a form of collaborative reciprocity.
Divided into groups, the audience enters the auditorium after passing through a brief experience outdoors. Accompanied by visually impaired artist La Flâme, one of the four performer/leaders involved, my group started by observing the soundscape and by testing the directionality of our voices. This opening anticipated the participatory logic informing the whole work. The audience is gently called upon to participate in and bear witness to an event that reaches each of us individually.
On stage, simple movement scores begin to weave an increasingly intricate relationship between hearing and touch. The artists leading the groups propose performing actions, moving in the space or producing sounds with performative sequences that foreground Vision’s refusal to establish clear distinctions between acting, participating and observing. Rather than assigning stable positions, the community and the work allow many modes of engagement to circulate, making participation itself an ecological and highly valuable condition. ●
Gaia Clotilde Chernetich’s trip to Montpellier was supported by Agora, Cité Internationale de la Danse
