Modern Body Festival proudly presents the Dutch premiere of A.lter S.essio!
LOSS | LAYERS is an audiovisual dance performance diptych questioning situations of loss (of balance, reference, control, identity) in a hostile environment. The performance occurs in a restrained setting, in which the choreographed body confronts a pervasive and oppressive audiovisual space. This clash unfolds in different time spans, contracting, expanding, constantly accelerating. With nothing to hold onto in a moving world, the body becomes overly active to respond to pressure, or slows down to overcome paralyzing states and its intense surroundings. The image mingles with the body. The gaze navigates between illusion and reality. Uncertainty and disorder sets in, pushing the audience to resist or accept it.
In LOSS, the fragile body, initially at one with the audiovisual environment, breaks away little by little, reaching a climax of excruciating noise and a mechanical disjointedness. The result reveals a dark and powerful universe in which we feel the invisible pull of acceleration, profusion and negation of the human being. A character comes to life, grows and begins the desperate combat until destruction.
In LAYERS, senses, energy and matter are one and the same. First, a sudden glare, then the slow, dark progression towards the next breakdown or dead-end. The difficulty resides not so much on the transition but in the reaction of the human faced with change. How to carry on? Perhaps it is simply a question of point of view. Every emotion, every paralysis becomes movement, built on its own ruins. Resurgence, erasure, lassitude, advancement, resistance and tenacity become its articulations.
Concept, direction, audio & visual creation: Fabrice Planquette
Choreography, performance: Yum Keiko Takayama
Costumes: Yum Keiko Takayama, Yoko Higashino
Drawing: Matthieu Levet, Cécile Attagnant
Guitar: Pierre Fruchard
BIOS
A.lter S.essio (FR/JP) is an artist collective founded by Fabrice Planquette in 1998 (conception, direction, audiovisual creation), and joined in 2007 by Yum Keiko Takayama (choreography, performance). The group creates dance-performances and installations, simultaneously brutal and subtle, mixing contemporary and neo-butoh dance with audiovisual digital research and development, treating each component (body, image, sound, text) in equal terms. Through their work, they explore the place of the individual in society and question the conditions of contemporary existence. Live or survive, it is about fight, collapse, and play with a radical construction. A.lter S.essio has performed in most European countries, as well as in South America, Canada, and Japan in very diverse festivals. This will be their premiere in The Netherlands.
Fabrice Planquette works mainly as composer and sound designer in experimental music, sound poetry, installation and performance. He has collaborated with many dance and theatre companies since 1997. He was awarded the 2006 Villa Kujoyama grant in Kyoto (Japan). In 2007, he begun a series of performances in collaboration with international artists with the group A.lter S.essio, which he directs.
After learning classical ballet, modern and butoh dance, ‘Yum’ Keiko Takayama has been working on solo performances and collective projects (dance, theatre, photography). From 2000-2007 she toured extensively around the world with Japanese company Sennichimae Blue Sky Dance Club (neo-butoh). Her solo performances are similarly dedicated to non-theatre spaces. Since 2007, she is choreographer, performer and costume designer for the performing art group A.lter S.essio. She also leads workshops based on the idea of “having unlimited communication through out our limited body”.