Immersive installation of Joris Mathieu and Nicolas Boudier with the contribuition of Haut et Court.
Producer: Théâtre Nouvelle Génération – Centre dramatique national de Lyon
Presented by: French Institute in Romania – Cluj-Napoca
The installation will be on display throughout the festival.
Design: Joris Mathieu et Nicolas Boudier in collaboration with Haut et Court
Adaptation: Joris Mathieu
Scenography and lighting: Nicolas Boudier
Video: Siegfried Marque
Sound mixing: Nicolas Thévenet
Performers: Philippe Chareyron, Adèle Gascuel, Vincent Hermano, Joris Mathieu, Marion Talotti
Set design: Guillaume Ponroy, Jean-Yves Petit
Decoration: Caroline Oriot
Technical design team: Raphaël Bertholin, Théo Gagnon, Jean-Yves Petit, Thierry Ramain, Mathieu Vallet, Gaëtan Wirsum
Stage management: Stephen Vernay
Les Loges [Dressing Rooms] is an artistic project, mixing digital art and mediation, for one spectator at a time. The project seeks to promote and familiarise people with contemporary works of drama through a sensory digital experience.
By taking a seat in Les Loges, visitors settle down for a few minutes to enjoy a tête-à-tête with a virtual performer who takes them through the intimate details of a play. By putting on the handset you find yourself in surprising proximity to an actor or actress, as if you were sitting on the other side of a mirror in their dressing room. Using a theatrical optical installation, the performer appears before you in virtual form and looks you straight in the eyes, then recites a monologue from a contemporary French work of drama. The idea is to create an experience that draws inspiration from theatrical tradition and pays tribute to the art of acting.
The first collection of plays was put together in partnership with ARTCENA (the French National Centre for Circus, Street Arts and Theatre) based on works chosen among winners of two prizes that the centre awards every year: Aide à la création de textes dramatiques (national program to identify and support contemporary playwrights writing in French) and Grands Prix de littérature dramatique (Grand Prize for Dramatic Literature). The list of plays included in Les Loges will continue to grow in size and variety over time.
A virtual encounter with theatre
The installation uses an optical theatre device that makes the actors and actresses seem eerily real. The performers appear virtually in 3D, facing the viewer, in a space that feels like it has true depth.
Our goal is to bring together each viewer with an actor or actress and a play by a contemporary author. The intention behind using digital technology is to provide a tool that makes a collection of plays available to people at any time of day without reducing the performance to an on-screen transmission.
Our approach to digital technology in how it relates to a live performance means that we work on artistic projects that require the audience to be in a given location, in a staged environment that increases the sensory dimension of the experience. What we strive to do is to stage an image that incorporates the body, objects, life itself. As such, our artistic installations challenge the notions of proximity and meetings. They encourage visitors to leave their house, step away from their screens and experience emotions created by plays on depth and space.
