LIEUX MIROIR
An augmented reality choreographic work for three locations
CAST & CREATIVE TEAM
Concept & choreography: Natacha Paquignon
Visual arts engineer: Maxime Touroute
Engineer & experience designer: Amaury Belin, MuseoPic
Music: Valentin Durif
Dancers: Lise Bois, Clément Olivier, Natacha Paquignon
Additional engineers: Louis François Barthélémy, Victor Ducray, Eva Maurer, Shirley Truffier-Blanc
Technical management: Eric Lombral
Production: Compagnie Corps Au Bord
Co-production: Scène Nationale d'Aubusson
Creation venue & technological research and development: Centre National de la Danse (Lyon)
Partners: DRAC Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Région Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Lieux Miroir (Mirror Places) is an augmented reality choreographic work unfolding across three real locations, which become imaginary places: the square of nooks and crannies, the park of the turn, the witches' passage. The work opens onto a hidden dimension of these places, inhabited by dancers.
The choreography explores our paradoxes and the fragmentation of our identities. Each space reveals one facet of the kaleidoscopic personality of three choreographic characters.
They first appear as guides, taking a form inspired by the Non-Player Characters (NPCs) of video games. In this form, they deliver messages to the audience. On contact with the spaces, they transform, revealing another of their many facets.
A variety of interactive modules lets each viewer discover the work by following their own path.
Lieux Miroir was created in Aubusson, co-produced with the Scène Nationale d'Aubusson.
The work is designed to travel to other territories: the choreographic scenes are placed in three locations, and the guides' messages are partly rewritten to fit each new context.
ARTISTIC INTENT
When I began my research into choreographic creation in augmented reality, I had the intuition that augmented reality would allow me to bring together two paths I had been patiently exploring, which seem contradictory. On one side, the body's relationship to its environment, rooted in a posture of observation engaging all the senses: feeling what the environment tells us, and transcribing those sensations into movement. On the other, the body's relationship to technology, which grew out of the first: it was because the world was filling up with tools that I wanted to explore how the body relates to tools and technologies.
It is in these two seemingly opposed directions that I carried out my research, which has now led to my first augmented reality choreographic work: Lieux Miroir. The boundary between inside and outside, which I have always explored, takes on new meaning.
The relationship to space provides the work's imaginary premise: places have magical properties — they reveal different facets of our personalities. To this relationship with place is added the relationship between our inner and outer selves, between the public aspects and the hidden, interior aspects of our identities.
For the choreographic writing of these characters, I drew on qi gong, an internal martial art that I integrate into composition as a writing technique. Qi gong allows me to invite the dancers to reach for sensations, feelings and memories through the body, without engaging a psychological dimension.
Lieux Miroir is a hybrid work — part performance, part visual artwork, part playful trail. It embodies my desire to build a piece like a treasure hunt weaving together the real and the immaterial, and to give the audience a role as a full participant in the process of performance.
Natacha Paquignon