>>PREVIEW
SOLO: THE DOUBT WITHIN ME
Opens February 20
By Philippe Decouflé
Theatre Junction and Dancers’ Studio West
The GRAND (Theatre Junction)
A lone figure emerges from behind a screen and stands centre stage at Theatre Junction’s GRAND Theatre. The score swells around him while he dances as if for the first time, though his limbs know each gesture. Another man joins him, imitating his movements. The music builds and the lighting collides as the second figure reveals itself as a mirror image of the first dancer, an illusion of a duet.
"When I come onstage for this solo, I have this big bag on my back full of all the things that I have done, and I pick up different things every day," says Philipe Decouflé of his new one-man show, SOLO: The Doubt Within Me. "It depends about how I feel, where I am, how the audience reacts or not. It’s different every day. It's therapy for me, this solo show."
After more than 20 years as a choreographer in his native France, Decouflé decided to commit to a more personal exploration than in his previous ensemble pieces. Unsure of how to bring this idea to the stage, he collaborated with a crew of five, including a musician, light designer, sound designer and two videographers to create an illusion of multiplicity. SOLO uses a barrage of techniques to create a surrealistic fusion of media and modern dance. Video clips give the audience a glimpse of Decouflé’s personal history and, as the show unfolds, he interacts with mirrors as well as live video projections to appear as though he is dancing with himself. Other images are more illusions than collaborations, lending him two heads, six arms and 10 legs.
Decouflé believes everybody carries different images of themselves, vivid memories and anecdotes that make each of us whole. In the show, he strives to pull out each of these and display them, allowing the audience to take away what they will while keeping some for himself to use at a later date, or another performance.
Much like sharing the outcomes of a therapy session, Decouflé is particular about when and where he will perform SOLO. He wants his performance to stay fresh so that he continues to convey the delight of uncovering something new. As he realizes more about himself each show, he strives to keep the magic of discovery accessible to the audience.
"Everything that I give is not really mine anymore," he says. "The audience takes a part of that, but I still have the memory and this space inside me. There is an idea that I can reuse for several shows."
Decouflé reveals his inner workings by interacting with himself. He reconciles his psyche by dancing with his id and leaves only himself on stage. SOLO is meant to provoke the audience into the same self-exploration that motivated his own. While Decouflé wants his images to mystify and confound, the dancer stresses the audience does not need to know anything about dance to access the experience.
"We play a lot with images, so it’s between dance, painting, video art. It is easy to look at. It’s not like a language, it’s more like visual poetry." |
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