Icare Écart

Show from KDanse, 2003

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Visuals, programming : Antoine Schmitt
Sounds : Jacky Mérit
Choreography: KDanse
Creation : Festival Monik – Odyssud (Blagnac – FR) – Mar 2003

The Icare/Ecarts Choreography, of the KDanse company, is a complex choreography on the theme of Icare, flight and the relationship between man and technology.
I have collaborated to this choreography by proposing, designing and building an interactive artwork especially designed for a few scenes of the piece : the Flight Simulator.
The Simulator is visually abstract and minimal and projected on a large screen in the middle of the stage. It is interactive with the dancer, in that the dancer pilots the ‘plane’ using his/her body (the Simulator has a camera to see the dancer) : if the dancer bends to the right, the plane does too and truns to the right, if the dancer bends down, the plane plunges towards the ground, etc… The sounds produced by the Simulator (realistic abstract plane sounds), based on samples designed by Jacky Mérit, are mixed live with the sounds of the choreography. The behavior of the Simulator is purely reactive : it has no autonomy. It just flies according to the position of the dancer. It can crash (and subsequently restart). At the end of the choreography, according to the scenario, the plane goes through the ‘sky’, and into the outerspace, which is white.
The Simulator has a strong presence in the choreography. Even though it is not autonomous, it projects the dancer in a virtual, though dramatically real, universe.
This Simulator is part of a larger collaboration going on with the KDanse company, around autonomous systems in choreographic work.

 

Extract “Icare/Écart” on Vimeo.

Website KDanse

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