Seen now in about 30 countries around the world, Pixel is a roaring success and mind-blowing mix of virtuoso hip-hop dance with cutting-edge digital projection. With never-before-seen stagecraft, dancers achieve aerial and acrobatic feats in a 3-D digital landscape that changes with their every movement, on ground that shifts beneath their feet, a wave suddenly rises up from the floor, a grid of dots shatters into a flurry of snow… The result is a breathtaking choreography and imagery, offering a glimpse into the exciting possibilities at the border of the virtual world.
Press
"Delightful, cloying, surprising all at once." Herald Sun
"The virtual projections are not mere stage effects, but partners for the performers." Slate
"The choreographer is a master of fusion. None have so perfectly managed to marry the screen and the moving body." The Jerusalem Post
Statement of intent
"We are constantly exposed to images, videos and digital media. Screens are everywhere. One only needs to walk down the streets of big capitals of some countries to imagine what will be the city of tomorrow : a large exposure to images which is now part of our everyday life.
The “Pixel” project is born when I first met Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne and from the fascination I felt at that moment : it was just like I wasn’t able to make the difference between both the real and the virtual world and I rapidly decided to try a new association using those new technologies with and for dance.
The first experience mixing dance and interactive video has been breathtaking for the performers who are part of the project. With the same curiosity and opened mind that inspire me, I face, during this new adventure, an impalpable world created by the light projection developed by the Adrien M / Claire B Company. The challenge of making both worlds interact with each other and of striking a subtle balance between both techniques so that dance and abstract representations answer each other without one getting the upper hand, destabilizes me again with the way I approach gesture. I follow that quest for motion which I keep developing and improving at each of my creations, with new constraints and new playing partners.
How does the dancer perform in a space made up of illusions on a 3D-set, when video may by turns accompany motion as well as hinder it?
Besides video projections, I wanted Armand Amar’s music to fit closely to the choreography and the images, like a warmer invitation to travel. Accompanying the performers, his music brings out the energy as well as the poetry lying in the dancer’s body.
Those new discovery paths allow me to work on this extension of reality and to face a synthetic world, which is odd for a choreographer who feeds off bodies and material. Inhabiting dance in a space where the body only faces dreams, developing gestures in moving landscapes created by Adrien M and Claire B.
I wanted to open up the way where the synthetic world of digital projection interacts with the dancer’s reality.
Each artist has playfully immersed in an unknown world, with a sharing mind, relying on hip-hop virtuosity and energy, mixing up poetry and dreams, to create a show at the crossroads of arts."
Mourad Merzouki