© Philippe Latour
Extérieur/nuit
Extérieur/nuit is a choral piece using the aesthetic of the existential thriller, based on the motif of nocturnal wandering. It plunges us into a world both ferocious and cruel, where three destinies intertwine in an unusual way. In this breathless night with a fatal outcome, we meet three characters: Joëlle, a suburban teenager who usurps the identity of a classmate to meet men in a park; Cody_Ryan, a young man who no longer knows how to distinguish reality from his disturbing fantasies; and Sandra, an enigmatic young woman caught up in her violent past. Author JJ Houle adopts a dislocated narrative structure, gradually unveiling the events of a tragic evening that will seal the fate of these three characters. She explores existential questions that shake the notion of identity. She leads us through a ballet of disorienting images and elusive déjà-vu, highlighting the complexities and dilemmas facing the protagonists. She explores how these experiences can create a profound confusion, shaking our perception of ourselves and the world around us.
To bring it all together on stage, we’re developing a scenic language based on the anxiety and the feeling of inadequacy experienced by the characters. We want this language to generate ambiguity and doubt in the audience as to what is real and what is illusory. We use the illusion of levitation to give the impression that a performer is floating as if by magic. In a similar way, we use ventriloquism without puppets, coupled with a surround-sound system, to create a sense of disorientation through sound, by dissociating voice and body. The proposal shifts the theater into the realm of dreams, creating a sensory disturbance for the audience.
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Creation Le Théâtre Indépendant
Text JJ Houle
Direction Charles Voyer
Set design Léo Gaudreault
Lights Flavie Lemée
Son Antoine Racine
Rigging Frédérik Dallaire Pelletier
with Gwendoline Côté, Charles Voyer, Aline Winant
Associated producer LA SERRE – arts vivants
Coproduction Infrarouge, Festival TransAmérique, Théâtre Prospero with the support of Conseil des arts de Montréal, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Canada Council for the Arts
Crédits
Le Théâtre Indépendant
Le Théâtre Indépendant is an interdisciplinary collective whose work is at the crossroads of theatre, performance and visual arts. Somewhere between personal narrative and fiction, the collective seeks to depict a queer perspective of life, giving voice to invisible narratives, not in the name of advocacy, but rather in the spirit of expanding collective stories. Le Théâtre Indépendant opens up a dramaturgy of intimacy, awakening the sensitivity of the audience and confronting diverse realities. The group’s recent creations have notably tackled the question of identity with regard to violence. How can we find a form of sublimation through the embodiment of pain?
We work together to develop hybrid creations in which all components of the performance interact in a nonhierarchical way. While in a theatrical setting, we believe that when disciplines intermingle, a dynamism emerges. In our work, we allow theatre, ventriloquism, performance, visual arts and sound art to come together. In other words, we believe they all deserve the same attention. That’s why we believe that an exchange of knowledge and skills across theatre and the visual arts is what makes our collective unique. Our raw working material is the relationship with the audience. In our works, we wish to respond to the present moment. We make use of sensory displacements, questioning the obvious to see what we have normalized in our connection with reality. Our aim is to produce works that bring fortha plurality of perspectives. To achieve this, we embody artistic strategies that encourage divergence, blending artistic and personal backgrounds. We believe in celebrating heterogeneity, the diversity of perspectives generated by grouping one individual with others.