LATENCY
Immersive choreographic, visual and sound performance
For 2 human dancers, the audience, and 1 non-human dancer.
Latency is an immersive choreographic, visual and sound performance for two dancers, the audience, and a non-human dance partner: an AI system that learns, from our bodies and movements, to generate its own visual identity, sound, and choreographic language.
Latency questions the dialogue between human and non-human, and the gap between the time of the body and the time of technology, taking the opposite stance to logics of acceleration and performance. In Latency, the bug, the unexpected, become the conditions of this relationship.
At the heart of the project: choreographic language and writing, and the relational dimension of dance. Latency explores different ways of translating danced movement into words, images, and sounds, which become the choreographic language of the conversational AI we are developing.
The audience is invited into a collective experience: helping a "baby AI" become a great dancer. After a playful entry in which they are invited to offer simple gestures, they witness the AI's evolution — from its "adolescence," with its share of identity searches, to a coercive phase in which it takes possession of the dancers' bodies, leading to a dead end. The quest for perfection and performance impoverishes the poetry of choreographic dialogue. We must return to blur and uncertainty for a true relationship to emerge. Alternately dancer, movement translator, and click-worker, the audience takes part in the various phases of the AI's learning process via their smartphone, before being invited to a moment of shared dance with the dancers and the machine.
The artistic research is supported by AADN, Le Hublot, Château Éphémère, La Fabrique de la Danse, Lux Scène Nationale, la Mission Culture Lyon 1 / Théâtre Astrée, le Théâtre Kantor / ENS Lyon, and the VIVIER 2026 program. The research-creation is conducted with the GRAVITER group, bringing together researchers engaged in work questioning the relationships between live arts and technology, and the Laboratoire Informatique d'Avignon (Avignon Computer Science Laboratory).
DISTRIBUTION
Co-authors: Natacha Paquignon, Maxime Touroute, Quentin Bozon, Manon Boucher (Maidova)
Choreographer, co-author of the AI system: Natacha Paquignon
Software development, co-author of the AI system: Maxime Touroute, creative technologist, with support from Tom Veniat, AI PhD & Rémy Dupanloup, developer
Dancers: Laure-Anne Deltort, Natacha Paquignon
Data mathematical and visual interpretation: Alex Andrix, artist for science
Interactive design, visual creation: Quentin Bozon et Manon Boucher (Maidova)
Sound design : Simon Jurine (first steps of the work), casting in progress
PARTNERS
Production : Compagnie Corps Au Bord / Creative partners: Reveality, LabLab Studio /
Co-production, residency hosting: AADN (Lyon), Le Hublot (Nice), Château Éphémère (Carrières-sous-Poissy), Hangars Numériques (Saint-Denis, La Réunion), La Fabrique de la Danse (Pantin), Théâtre Astrée - Mission Culture de l'Université Lyon 1, Théâtre Kantor - ENS Lyon, ENSATT Lyon, LUX Scène Nationale de Valence.
The Latency creative work benefits from the support of Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée - CNC, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region, the City of Villeurbanne.
Research-creation partners: The research-creation project L.A.T.E.N.C.Y. is led in collaboration with GRAVITER - Research group on live performing arts and digital technologies, ICAR Laboratory - ENS Lyon, CNRS, Lyon 2 University, ICTT et LIA Laboratories - Avignon University, ELLIADD Laboratory, UMCP, Besançon, Marges - ELICO Laboratory, Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, ATILF - Lorraine University, Aix-Marseille University.
This project received funding from the French State, managed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) under the HARMONIE project of France 2030, with the reference ANR-23-PEIC-0002 (PEPR ICCARE).
PARTNERS
