It will be like a living nature, a human sculpture. On a large square platform, white as a glacier, ten dancers intertwined, dependent, unique, together. They will move, at first imperceptibly. The base will rotate, at first imperceptibly. Everything will accelerate, imperceptibly, then trickle and fly again, in this animated metaphor which is also one with the current climate crisis. Discussion.
This is the first time that American Faye Driscoll, 48, has come to Quebec — and she says it in a few words of good French, learned at school, before falling back on her native English.
This first meeting here will go through Weathering, a piece “certainly straddling visual art, performance, dance, and sound. It’s a very sonorous piece,” explains the choreographer in a video interview.
“The choreography is made of several layers,” continues Mme Driscoll. It’s multisensory. There are smells, liquids, vibrations and also this visual work well in front, obvious, with the bodies, sometimes fixed, sometimes immobile, sometimes not. »
Come on, salivate…
“A good part of the score is made up of breaths that the microphones catch,” continues the creator. It is not only the natural breathing of the dancers that we hear: there is actually a “song of breathing”, written…”
Of the dozen works signed by the choreographer since 2005, where she plays, among other things, on the relationship with the public and the real presence between the dancer and the spectators, Weathering is the one that tours the most, and which has opened the doors to new theaters since the premiere in 2023. “The construction of the choreography was done in a very, very meticulous way, really detailed, by superpositions. »
“Like a sculpture where we add different densities — and at the same time by posing very precise paintings, staging appointments: here, you have to have your finger in this exact position towards this person, and the breathing comes at the same time, and you have to let a trickle of saliva flow now…” she illustrates, a calm smile on her lips.
“Everything is constantly moving, through these different layers, which have a somatic or emotional effect, like some kind of big biological process…”
Weathering is presented and read by critics as also a representation of the climate crisis, an illustration of its effects on bodies.
“I hadn’t initially thought of going there,” admits Faye Drsicoll, “but I always have the climate crisis somewhere in my mind, and it is on the minds of many, and there is so much pain and anxiety that come with this subject… and this constant question, “What should I do?”, and “How?”, “What can I do?”. »
Intimate changes, global changes
“So I started thinking about these waves of movement that have happened throughout time; and at the same time, in the studio, when we started moving very, very slowly, I understood that I was then able to observe the very, very subtle changes. »
The choreographer was then reading the Anthropocene philosopher Timothy Morton. From Hyperobjects. Philosophy and ecology after the end of the world (Cité du design), Faye Driscoll spins the idea “that a hyperobject is an event that moves through time and space in such a way that we have difficulty perceiving it, except in spontaneous moments, too discreet.
The climate crisis is of this nature, according to the artist. “It moves for waves of time and in waves of time, and puts us humans in a kind of state of amnesia… because we can’t really grasp the idea… but suddenly, a sudden climatic event occurs and breaks this amnesia…”
“The making of this climate crisis began hundreds of years ago, since the Industrial Revolution, moving through time and space…”
“I wondered how we could smell that…if there was a possibility of slowing down enough…so we could smell it.” »
“If we could be in touch with our anguish and our pain…and see ourselves not as living inside a weather system, but as part of a living system, being of that system with every breath, as beings also who are climate, in a way…”
All that ended up mixing together in the creation, explains Mme Driscoll, “as often happens in a process: strong elements are found in parallel with each other”.
“The things you think about. The ones that haunt you. The ones that appear. So for me, it’s about listening and also understanding how it works. »
Also added was the reading of the study Weathering: Climate Change and the “Thick Time” of Transcorporeality by Astrida Neimanis and Rachel Loewen Walker to this great soup of ideas. “But it’s not logical, how it got mixed up: it’s not an attempt either, the creation. »
Concretely, in Wehearingthe continuum of small movements, of transformations changes the perception we had of an image, of a dancer, says the choreographer.
” THE persona I’m interested in these moments when a kind of entity seems to emerge from a body, and change the way we grasp the person. »
“I’m fascinated when it changes again and again, and it moves, and it doesn’t stay fixed, and to be able to observe this transformation. Especially since I believe that we often perceive ourselves as if we were images, words, whereas as humans, we are constantly in this state of constant change. »
“That’s my thing: I really just like observing people. It’s fascinating. Looking at who we are, what we are becoming, this dance we dance. » And who, sometimes, as in Weatheringstarts in slow motion, and…
Weathering
A choreography by Faye Driscoll for ten performers. Presented as part of the FTA at Usine C, from June 3 to 5.