A picture of the entrance doors of the theater is projected on those same doors. A pre-recorded performer appears, comes in, goes out again… a live performer comes in, goes back out… the performer, filmed real-time, comes in, goes back out again… three different time periods, three durations, three meeting points between a performer and his two images.

Performer: Jean-Michel Fête.

Recorded at the MIA Festival, Anncey, November 2003.
Recorded during the performance at the Arsenal de Metz, March 2004.

pas_de_direction is a multi-media event which takes place in three different places through an overlapping of past, present and future. It is a passage through time, a poetic construction of duration, an attempt to capture the present, and presences…
This temporal matter is explored through anonymous sound documents, bodies, physical bodies, essentially with images of bodies passing and passing again through anonymous public places.

The impression of the flow of time, of time passing is created by a particular organization, repetition, stretching or compressing, the focus or lack of focus of the sound, the images or the performers’ interpretation.
The audience is guided by the flow of voices and sound documents which are composed and continually played back along the way. The flow of voices is the life-line and current, the link between the public’s arrival and departure. Bits of conversations recorded mostly on the radio, or in the street, are selected according to the general theme of time, then composed, recomposed, fragmented… We hear short, anonymous words concerning time, today’s, yesterday’s, and tomorrow’s. In contrast, all of those hurried time words are embedded in a potentially loose and infinite duration. With neither beginning, nor end.

The images are coordinated in accordance with this musical proposal; they pulsate, breathe, come in and out of focus, and require constant optical adjustment on the part of the spectators. A flow of people, in transit, passing. People walk, go up, go down, turn around, go backwards, and go on.

performers : Gregory Kammoun, Jean-Michel Fète, Eric Grondin
technical director : Yann Philippe.

pas_de_direction is co-produced by: Sn@rc (Site Nomade des @teliers de Recherche Chorégraphique), Arsenal de Metz, Ircam, Bonlieu scène nationale d'Annecy, centre des arts d'Enghien-les-Bains, Halle aux Grains de Blois scène nationale, with sponsorship from Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (DRAC Ile-de-France, DICREAM), and the Conseil Général du Val d'Oise, and support from the atelier de création d'ART 3000 - Cube, Issy-les-Moulineaux.

Like in a night club, a disco ball turns and lights up the room. The light source has been replaced by a video-projected image. A performer reads a text and his image is broken up into a multitude of little images. Everything spins.

Performer: Jean-Michel Fête