experimental theater
By Annie Dorsen, DD Dorvillier and Anne Juren
Directed by: Annie Dorsen
Performance: DD Dorvillier and Anne Juren
Scenography: Roland Rauschmeier
Sound Design: Sebastien Roux
Lighting Design: Thomas Dunn
In Pièce sans paroles the spectator is confronted with dramatic characters and a narrative scene that come to the fore through the use of the body and its interplay with the space, sound, and light, in gesture, body language, and intensities. A central question is that of the reassessment of movement in a field of narrative plots and dramatic expression, and the analytical study of choreography. In contrast to a choreographic process based on the decryption and recoding of movement material, where a dramaturgy arises in the course of production, we are interested in working with a pre-written text, a prescribed dramaturgy as the means to produce the choreography.
The idea is not to use movement or dance as a substitute or signifier for the absent text — as an expressive interpretation through movement, of written text — but to use the movement and gestures inherently present in the dramatic action and staging of psychological shifts between characters, this almost invisible bi-product, as the material of the choreography. The play is the score. Thus we transfer pre-written designed scenes, through the displacement of language, to the domain of dance, highlighting the presence of movement in order to make a new reading of choreography possible. In Pièce Sans Paroles we are interested in gestural details and how they are able to transport complex moods and actions. We are attempting, based on a non-verbal adaptation of linguistic material, to open up dance to unusual contexts, that ultimately lead to a choreography, and which include expression as part of the dance performance.
Working with the director, and with the two choreographers ser ving as actresses, the play is initially staged as such, keeping the timing of its dialogues and interactions intact, as well as stage directions, psychological motivations, body language, and dramatic gestures, with the audible linguistic element of the script eventually left out. As we enter into the next phase of development we consider this wordless adaptation as material for further choreographic scrutiny.
Questions about the expressive use of sound and music, as well as stage lighting and scenography, will be addressed parallel to the exploration. What are the “bi-products” of sound and light in the environment of a theatrical play? Are there equivalencies to spoken word with theatrical lighting and music? When you remove the spoken word from the actors, do the lights behave as text, texture? What are the materials that remain? How does the sound become the organizing principle? We use the play as a score to generate the conditions which normally add up to a narrative theatrical experience, but in removing the text we unleash the potential for multiple readings of sense and meaning within an unquestionably sensual, physical, and immediate event.