Stir Q&A: Through My Eyes re-creates childlike wonder with imaginative dance and a kaleidoscope of colours
Piece for young audiences by Montreal company Bouge de là’s Hélène Langevin plays with shadows, shapes, and illusions
Through My Eyes. Photo by Rolline Laporte
Anvil Theatre presents Bouge de là’s Through My Eyes on November 17 and 18 at 1 pm
GIANT FLUFFY POMPOMS, entrancing multicolour shadows, and geometric black-and-white patterns abound on stage in Through My Eyes, a dance performance created specially for young audiences.
The work from Montreal, Quebec-based company Bouge de là is conceived, directed, and choreographed by its artistic director Hélène Langevin, who’s been creating children’s dance shows for nearly three decades. Through My Eyes unleashes the magic of set design when one dancer approaches a larger-than-life white pompom on stage and suddenly multiplies herself upon touching it, embarking on a vivid journey of discovery and optical illusions. Featuring performances from Angélique Delorme, Érika Morin, Myriam Tremblay, Julie Tymchuk, and Langevin, the piece is an imaginative playground that takes the concept of creativity to new heights.
Through My Eyes won the Prix du CALQ for best choreographic work of the 2018-19 artistic season from Prix de la danse de Montréal—the first piece for youth to win the title—and has since been toured across Canada.
Stir connected with Langevin before the show’s run in Vancouver to chat about her career, the importance of colour, and the fascinating process of choreographing dance for young audiences.
With so many elements at play, including props, lighting design, shadows, costuming, and dance movement, can you walk us through how the piece was created? Which of these elements came first when you were conceptualizing Through My Eyes?
Hélène Langevin. Photo by Suzane O’Neill
At the beginning of the creative process, I was exploring early childhood toys such as balls, costumes, musical toys, curtains, and the sounds of nature. During the first creation residency in January 2018, our set designer, Marilène Bastien, suggested we place a black-and-white-striped floor mat in front of the backstage curtain. Then, our lighting designer, Lucie Bazzo, proposed to add very vibrant colours to the white mats: green, orange, and fuchsia. On seeing all of these elements together on stage, my initial vision of the show took a 180-degree turn. Everything had become so highly graphic—the round ball against the lines on the floor, the set design colours, the black shadows becoming colourful and in movement.
Through My Eyes shows the world through the perspective of a child who explores. How is the movement quality of the performers different from a typical dance piece, or from how an adult might explore the world?
Children discover and explore matter with their senses from the moment they are born. Through all the abstraction used in this show, it was important for me to make lots of room to accommodate children’s gaze, and their perspective on pleasure, play, repetition, discovery, sensations, and transformation. All of these elements are part of the dance that makes up the show, and children are naturally drawn to the dynamics of movement. Through My Eyes gives a wide berth to the child’s imagination, and to the ways in which children interpret what they see. The succession of scenes can be read like a picture book, or a book of poetry. Each spectator is free to read it in his or her own way.
There is a rainbow of colours on stage, particularly in the lighting design, and it’s juxtaposed with black and white to create striking visuals. Can you explain the importance of colour in this piece, and what it represents?
I wanted to present the sensory awakening of a child to the world that surrounds them.
During the initial creative exploration, I had gone to the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art to see an exhibition of Olafur Eliasson, an artist who works with coloured lights and shadows. The exhibition inspired me to use shadows, not only in black and white, but also in colour to duplicate the dancer’s body. I felt like playing with that illusion as well as blending the colours together. The use of colour was equally used to support the child’s gaze and imagination at the root of this dance piece.
Additionally to the use of colour, Through My Eyes uses material and abstract elements to inform the choreography. For example, I was choreographing with the ball, its bounce, its repetitive action, its image; transforming the black and white stripes underfoot into a keyboard on which the dancers would play the piano; letting the sounds of toy instruments dictate embodied textures; accepting that a shapeless costume could maintain its abstract form while going through metamorphosis; working on the duplication of the body and its shadow; renewing the set design through changes of colour and lighting.
What first inspired you to design dance shows for children? With Bouge de là devoted exclusively to shows for young audiences, how do you stay at the top of your creative game?
Through My Eyes. Photo by Rolline Laporte
My first choreographic work for young audiences dates back to 1996, with Roche, Papier, Ciseaux. At the time, the dance piece was inspired by my practice as a teacher for children in creative dance. After 40 years of teaching children, a spirited blend of pedagogy and creativity inspiring the pleasure of dance is still my inspiration for creating new dance pieces.
Throughout my career, I have explored the movement and the body, with the primary objective of being able to play with theatricality, and create a language that allows me to better convey a variety of formal dance movement to children.
Another important element informing my creative practice is my appetite to explore different forms of art. This has led to many of my works intermingling dance, video, theatre, visual arts, shadow play, and—more recently—lasers. I also try to explore themes that are present in the everyday reality of children. For example, the five senses, the alphabet, the evolution and emotions of growing up, or the stories and characters that they encounter in literature and pop culture.
How do you hope that audiences, particularly young viewers, react when they watch Through My Eyes?
Through My Eyes engages the imaginations of children and stimulates their own creativity. Wherever it has been presented, the dance piece has been incredibly well-received by children and adults alike. We hear the public clap their hands to the rhythm and react at several points in the show. In their own words, the kids call it “a rainbow show”, and ask for more.
Related Articles
