its the story of a thread

Contract / Performance space / Language /Choreography
Contract:The first things the audience see when a performance begins form a contract. This contract teaches the audience how to read the performance, at the same time as the performance is unfolding.The contract is the key to understanding the continuity that holds and gives sense to the piece. This is as true of an abstract piece as of a narrative piece. When a piece makes sense to us it appears to reach a pointwhere we would accept anything that happens. The continuity of unfolding objects has set up a series of clues which teach us how to read, anticipate, recognise and be surprised by what follows. Sometimes, however, a piece takes a turn that drops the continuity in the wrong way, and we lose interest. This doesn’t mean that a piece can’t subvert our expectations. Constantly subverting our expectations also arrives at continuity.

About my performance in November

https://app.milanote.com/1MPbAq1Fw4NiaL/bibliography?p=OfMtZr2TKR4

STORY
The cave was where I wanted a rhizome to develop on November. But now, with a ten-minute performance we had the opportunity to put it in a cave until it finds a way out. After that, it discovers the woods.

Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the trouble, jeu de ficelle et respons(h)abilité

C’est dans les relations « multispécifiques » racontées par les histoires des traditions autour de la colombophilie ou de jeux de ficelles des peuples autochtones Navajo que l’on trouve matière à réfléchir à ce qu’Haraway appelle la respons(h)abilité, c’est-à-dire de se rendre mutuellement capable d’accepter la possibilité de la réussite et de l’échec d’une co-production.

extracted from https://journals.openedition.org/gss/6832

EXPERIMENTATION
How the links between people hold depending on the virtual space they are in (cave, woods, side of a highway)? I think that moment when we hear the cars is disturbing. And I think that this is the moment when participants will really want to leave the posture.

With this invisible thread poeple are connected together in an web. I wish the fact that people are linked directly to one or two persons is a way to see each other in a new way. Holding the posture is taking care of the persons you are linked with and taking care of the group and of the performance.

"It was easier to keep the posture when the sound of the cave was still on. The sound of the cave helped me to keep the posture."

The posture was hard to keep during all the performance.

https://museumfatigue.org/2020/04/09/making-string-figures-amid-the-troubles-on-zoom/

Baila Goldenthal, Cat's Cradle/String Theory, 2008
http://www.bailagoldenthal.com/painting/cats_cradle/cats_cradle.html

A Choreographer's Handbook, Jonathan Burrows

This extract of the Choreographer's Handbook really stroke me. I decided to divide my performance into parts in order to have this first part, the beginning part, in which I could set the contract.

FIRST PART:
Reenactement of November's perfomance. Everything is recreated, the sound is the same (cave sounds), the place is the same. My actions are quite different however. I sculpt / I give a posture to the body of the person in front of me. Well, I invite people to take the position I give them, they do whatever they want. I need them to be in a posture to get involved in the thread. The intention set up here is still to connect people together in a web. Everyone is motionless.

Are they going to keep the posture ? Are they going to use the threads, the scissors and the confettis I give them at the end ? Are they going to
play to the game I set up ?

" I really felt connected to the persons I was directly linked with."

"It was as if you were God and you used us as your puppets."

"It was as if we were in your dream."

What will happen when I give them the scissors ? Will they want to distruct everything ? And with the yarns, will they are going to continue the work or create something new, like a new protocol ?

SECOND PART:
I still link things together but now it is only people on the web. When the rizome get out from the cave and you hear that you are in the woods, it is time for me to link everybody with an invisible yarn.

THIRD PART:
When we finally get closer to the highway, I get my bag and I take scissors, a yellow thread, a green thread and confettis out of it. I give them to the participants. Every object isn't visible so I have to say "This is a (insert the name of the object) you can use it as you want."

EPILOGUE:
An alarm sounds. The participants understand that the illusion is over.

To create a sense of collaboration.
To create a form of co-production.
This performance works only if spectators believe in the invisible yarn, the invisible yarn exist only if the spectators holds the posture.

The performance happens for them but above all, through them. As they hold the posture they are doing a performance.

Maybe this performance is about the impossibility to connect with people in a modern aggresive environment

The invisibilty of the thread create a sense that even when the alarm cut everything up, maybe it is still here.
In the motionlessness of a classroom, or whenever we are together holding whatever posture, we are still connected together.