Fringe Online 2021
Still Life
Claude Breton-Potvin and Chantal Dupuis
Genre: Dance and Movement Theatre, Film
Venue: C Digital
Festival: Fringe Online
Low Down
We have a split screen with, on the left a couch that is in a back lot of somewhere and on the right a couch that is out in the open in an urban landscape. It looks quite dark and therefore dusk like on the left and bright and daylight on the right. Both artists have red buckets on their heads. They begin moving on their couches in a series of movements that are clumsily not in line with each other but do have a common movement thread. They then explore their couch before one disappears in one and then appears at the other side. There is a coordinated scene of movement which ends with the visitor returning back from whence they came. They both end up back in the pose they began with and with the same red buckets on their heads.
Review
This is exceptionally curious. The beginning does not really make much of their abilities and it does at times feel a little like an uncoordinated attempt to say something about the use of furnishings in our lives, but I am not quite sure. Once the delving into the couches, accompanied by the attendant mutterings and text on the film we get the idea of a search. When they become part of the couch this has a humorous side to it all.
That humor is helped by the appearance on the right-hand side by the dancer from the left. Between them this sequence is much more enchanting. The displacement of time and ability to communicate is possibly heightened for us all during this time and this does serve to remind us of just how much we are able to communicate but still depend upon technology. The ability to switch between places is an interesting narrative thought.
Both dancers have a charm that allow you to engage with and be part of the experience. Given that it is on film that is quite an interesting feat.
The camera work is good enough and most of it is shot in single long takes which are unforgiving.
Overall you do have to work a little to get through the piece but that does not diminish what it has to say and how worthy that statement is in the current climate.
