Kinesthetic Empathy
NIGHT OWLS
Collectif CHA [ David-Alexandre Chabot & Paul Chambers ]
40 minutes
The live performance is peripheral in this 360o luminous installation whose central proposition is light itself, rendered tangible and transformative. This is literally a staging of light in space. It begins as you are guided into a pitch-black space suffused with a forceful drone. A glowing, floating entity appears, acknowledges your presence, then connects with you through touch. The experience is at once otherworldly, compassionate and humane. Scattered with the other spectators across the seemingly infinite space, you lose your bearings. The space above you then awakens with shifting colours and intensities that leave their imprint on your retina and body. As you are left to your senses, light comes to life.
Design and direction Paul Chambers, David-Alexandre Chabot
Performance Annie Gagnon
Sound design David Albert-Toth
NIGHT OWLS follows the journey of a luminous being that communicates with the audience directly through light, movement, and touch. It is a 360º installation where audience and performer inhabit the same space. We are interested in deconstructing scenic hierarchy and integrating performance in a landscape of people. NIGHT OWLS was created in collaboration with choreographer/dancer Annie Gagnon at Studio 303 for the series Métamorphose, an evening where dance meets visual arts. Subsequently, the project was presented in Bulgaria at DNK.
Created in 2013 by designers David-Alexandre Chabot & Paul Chambers, CHA is a design collective aimed at creating design-based works with creators from different disciplines. What unifies CHA’s body of work is the way that it communicates with people, each production challenging the audience to place itself at the center of the proposition and to experience it from within.
David-Alexandre Chabot holds a great deal of interest in exploring concepts of dramaturgy and the conventions of the theatrical arts. His work has been shown across Canada, namely in Montréal, Québec, Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto, as well as internationally in Paris, Marseille, Reims and Queretaro, to name but a few.
Paul Chambers is a Montréal-based stage & lighting designer, educator and co-artistic director of CHA collective. Collaborating on new dance works has always been a priority for him. Teaching workshops has also been an important part of his development as an artist and mentor. At Studio 303, he teaches a yearly lighting design workshop for artists, in addition to teaching part-time at Concordia University. From 2008 until 2013, Paul is Technical Director at Tangente. Recent design credits include work with Public Recordings, Amanda Acorn, Dorian Nuskind-Oder, Catherine Lavoie Marcus & Priscilla Guy, Maria Kefirova, Katie Ward, Parts+Labour_Danse, Lara Kramer Dance & Destins Croisés.
Annie Gagnon studies visual arts and, later, contemporary dance. She graduates from EDCM in 2002. Dancer and choreographer, she presents her work across Québec ; most notably, her fourth creation, La Marche invisible, at Tangente (2010) ; Les femmes de la lune rouge, an immersive performance in the exhibit Samouraï, from the collection Ann et Gabriel Barbier-Mueller at the Musée de la civilisation de Québec (2013) ; and her solo work Reviens vers moi le ventre en premier at Tangente (2014).
David Albert-Toth is a dancer, choreographer, composer, and co-artistic director of Parts+Labour_Danse. A disposition towards eclectic artistic encounters has led David to perform throughout North America and Europe. Notable collaborations include work with Frédérick Gravel, Human Playground, Lemieux.Pilon 4D-Art and Peter Trosztmer, Emmanuelle Calvé, Floor Rider & Tonik Danse, and Compagnie Destins Croisés. He has contributed to interdisciplinary works by Thibaut Duverneix, Dominique Porte, Julie Favreau, and Moment Factory, and has been invited to teach in Canada, Mexico, and France. Following a string of independent choreographies, he began a choreographic partnership with Emily Gualtieri, founding Parts+Labour_Danse in 2011. Their 2013 works In Mixed Company and La chute have since won awards, the latter having toured nationally and named one of the ten outstanding moments in dance of 2013. In 2015, David was one of five internationally selected choreographers to participate in a creation workshop by Crystal Pite and Eric Beauchesne at the Banff Centre for the Arts. David has composed several scores for contemporary dance and performance works over the past few years and has begun releasing his own productions under the pseudonym Kids At Play. Parts+Labour_Danse is currently involved in several new creations that will premiere in the near future. David has been a member of the board of directors of the Regroupement québécois de la danse since 2015.
Rituel géométrique
Annie Gagnon
45 minutes
Three-dimensional geometric shapes, touched and handled by the performers, bring into existence a poetic language of moving imagery. A photographer has become the dramaturge for this work, in which light is a crucial ally. Four dancers bend and interlock bodies as if human origami, and from deep inside the folds in their flesh spring sensations that spark emotions. You are close to the performers; the better to feel kinesthetic empathy with the sensuous physicality. The performance is permeated by repulsion, attraction, intuition, love, and spirituality. You are entering a world of beauty, grace, and reflection.
Choreographer Annie Gagnon
Performers David Rancourt, Geneviève Boulet, Arielle Warnke St-Pierre, Sonia Montminy
Photographer and dramaturge Marjorie Guindon
Rehearsal director Jessica Serli
Scenographers and lighting designers Collectif CHA (Paul Chambers, David-Alexandre Chabot)
Composer Antoine Berthiaume
Annie Gagnon studies visual arts and, later, contemporary dance. She graduates from EDCM in 2002. Dancer and choreographer, she presents her work across Québec ; most notably, her fourth creation, La Marche invisible, at Tangente (2010) ; Les femmes de la lune rouge, an immersive performance in the exhibit Samouraï, from the collection Ann et Gabriel Barbier-Mueller at the Musée de la civilisation de Québec (2013) ; and her solo work Reviens vers moi le ventre en premier at Tangente (2014).
Created in 2013 by designers David-Alexandre Chabot & Paul Chambers, CHA is a design collective aimed at creating design-based works with creators from different disciplines. What unifies CHA’s body of work is the way that it communicates with people, each production challenging the audience to place itself at the center of the proposition and to experience it from within.
David-Alexandre Chabot holds a great deal of interest in exploring concepts of dramaturgy and the conventions of the theatrical arts. His work has been shown across Canada, namely in Montréal, Québec, Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto, as well as internationally in Paris, Marseille, Reims and Queretaro, to name but a few.
Paul Chambers is a Montréal-based stage & lighting designer, educator and co-artistic director of CHA collective. Collaborating on new dance works has always been a priority for him. Teaching workshops has also been an important part of his development as an artist and mentor. At Studio 303, he teaches a yearly lighting design workshop for artists, in addition to teaching part-time at Concordia University. From 2008 until 2013, Paul is Technical Director at Tangente. Recent design credits include work with Public Recordings, Amanda Acorn, Dorian Nuskind-Oder, Catherine Lavoie Marcus & Priscilla Guy, Maria Kefirova, Katie Ward, Parts+Labour_Danse, Lara Kramer Dance & Destins Croisés.
Montréal guitarist/composer Antoine Berthiaume has been active on the jazz and improvisation circuits for over 15 years. His work has recently been enriched by collaborations with contemporary dancers, especially with Annie Gagnon, Thierry Huard, Aurélie Pédron, Audrey Bergeron, Louis-Élyan Martin, Audrée Juteau, Alan Lake and Louise Lecavalier. His work is documented on over ten releases featuring masters of improvisation such as Fred Frith, Derek Bailey, MaryClare Brzytwa, Takumi Seino, Elliott Sharp, Michel Donato and Pierre Tanguay on Ambiances Magnétiques and Audiogram (Québec), Vos Record (Japan), Starkland (USA) and Incus (England). With grants from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts, Antoine has furthered his skills in the United States and Europe. Photographer Ralph Gibson recently included him in his review of 81 avant-garde guitarists, which has yielded a book and an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. After completing a Master’s degree in contemporary composition, he is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Composition and Sound Creation at the University of Montreal.
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