Papier telephone
I hold my phone, I dial and enter a listening space.
This space is a cave with multiple entrances, like tunnels.
It is an arena, a circus.
It is a black box theatre without walls.
It is a womb.
I am in this space and at the same time I am in a room with a window.
There is the view from my window.
I hear voices, allo, allo, hi.
The voices could be there with me.
'Papier telephone' is a collective phone call in which tha audience listens in and listens out. Performers Nina Boas, Katinka Marac, Camille Gerbeau and Emilie Gallier, read with a tactile gaze. Their eyes are feet and they wander on pages - with drawings and collage - these pages hold the space for their other performance ‘Papier multiforme, Papier comestible’. This practice of the tactile gaze first happened in rehearsals for that other performance. The daydreams emerging from the tactile gaze helped them sense what they called the ghosts of their performance. They attended to characters, things, landscapes, stories, presences they did not directly see in the performance. Attending to these ghosts, they could then invoke them in the moment of the performance, so they would be with they through their absent presence. This practice of the tactile gaze moved out of the rehearsal space and found a public room in 'Papier telephone'.
performance: Nina Boas, Katinka Marac, Camille Gerbeau, Emilie Gallier
score: Emilie Gallier
advice: Margarida Guia, Lars Kynde, Fransien van der Putt
production: PØST Cie Emilie Gallier
original commission: iii
presented within Dial-a-Spectacle supported by: De Nieuwe Dans Bibliotheek, Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE)
with the financial support of: the Dutch Embassy in the United Kingdom
Images of doodles sent by spectators, June and October 2020.
'Dial-a-Spectacle', De Nieuwe Dans Bibliotheek, C-DaRE, 8 and 15 October 2020
PIY Scores exhibition, iii, 14 June 2020