Elementen I – Room (2016)

The question of limits runs through ELEMENTEN I – Room, more specifically through the radical choice of music, I Am Sitting in a Room by Alvin Lucier (1996). This is speech uttered by the composer that is repeated, recorded, and replayed until the natural, resonant frequencies of the room become stronger and take over from the concrete aspect of the voice and the understanding of the words. The focus is at a tautological level, the mechanics of this speech repeated over and over provokes a gradual transformation of it, as it disintegrates to the point of disappearing. Repetition stretches a thread around which perception travels, constantly varying the ambit of its intensity and being forced to become active, to look and see, listen and hear, feel and receive. We might therefore consider that the limits invoked in this work are set in the common space between the stage actor and the audience. In terms of body language, the dialectic of limits lies in my resistance to the virtuosity of the dancers, in order to preserve the intimate conviction that places the work at the centre of both parts, weighting it with restraint to push the dancers beyond their initial capabilities, into unusual terrain where a real exchange can take place. The set is made up of two elements: an 8×8 dance floor, printed with an image inspired by Ulam’s spiral based on prime numbers, and a luminous object whose sources are linked to software that interferes with the intensity of the light in relation to the sound. — CVA