“Nothing that is human is foreign to me,” says a famous quote. However, nowadays, it is quite the opposite: all that is human seems to be swimming in the middle of science fiction. And come close to dystopia. As Dominique Leclerc says in her new theatrical production at the Théâtre d’Au Today, in a scene where she renounces motherhood: “I may have known the last generation of chance. ”
Four years after the creation of Post humans, which focused on the transhumanist movement, Leclerc continues with i / O his reflection on the capacity of technologies to transform our lives. For better and for worse. By wanting to push back the limits of what is possible in the name of progress and science, humans seem to have lost their bearings, and a little also their soul.
Science and friction
Between “science-friction, autofiction and documentary theater”, i / O offers an ode to the strength and fragility of mankind. Through a quest that is both intimate and universal, the designer questions science, this new opium of the people, without judgment other than the desire to better understand. It also seeks to establish a dialogue between different philosophical movements: posthumanism, transhumanism and other “techno-utopias”.
Leclerc interviewed specialists in the question (of which we see excerpts from interviews on the big screen). She wants their story on the ethical use of biotechnology on genetics, among others. It makes them react to our need to have recourse to science to extend our physical capacities, to push back aging, to defy death, to modify the DNA of a future child …
PHOTO VALÉRIE DELIVERED, PROVIDED BY THE PRODUCTION
Jérémie Battaglia and Dominique Leclerc in i / O
Save his soul!
Along with his philosophical quest, Dominique Leclerc also delivers his own story. His childhood in Lévis, his life and career choices, his relationship with his family, but especially that with his father – a welder victim of a work accident which rendered him disabled shortly before his retirement. A sensitive, touching and modest relationship with a good man. This figure from another era forms the common thread of his story which questions the future. While in the present pandemic, the artist will have to mourn his father … another stage in life.
Dominique Leclerc is a total artist coupled with a great popularizer, like Robert Lepage, for example. She has a knack for communicating her thoughts to the public. And the talent to find the perfect art form to do it. She is accompanied on stage by her accomplices (silent), Jérémie Battaglia and Patrice Charbonneau-Brunelle (hats off for their nod to Madonna’s dancers!), In an efficient and inventive “low-tech” staging by Olivier Kemeid.
The show slows down a bit towards the end with a scene that unnecessarily stretches (the father’s shirt will be washed well, with four loads!). However, if Leclerc takes this long path, it is to better express his desire to leave a trace, large or small, of his past. At the end of her quest, she will be able to save her soul.
Visit the theater website
i / O
From and with Dominique Leclerc. Directed by Olivier Kemeid and Dominique Leclerc.
At the Michelle-Rossignol room of the CTD’A, until December 4.