"SHiNMu" invites the audience to float in an unreal, poetic, and sometimes brutal universe, seated in a boat drifting down the stream of their own unconsciousness.
SHiNMu presents an imaginary, even insane, world that audience members will travel across while liberating themselves from all links to the real world as performance progresses. All this in order to let themselves be overcome by the sails of their own imaginations.
Every page of this narrative possesses multiple meanings, and it is the unconscious of each individual that decides upon the order in which to interpret them. There are as many SHiNMu as there are imaginations.
Dreaming is a very personal experience but also universal, because we all dream despite the fact that our consciousness doesn't always remember each dream.
Through exploring the movement of bodies, Anan Atoyama seeks out a speech free from the societal and cultural contexts in which they have been shaped. The movements prove to be illogical and outside of the norm, bursting the surfaces of the unconsciousness’ bubbles.
The stage is outfitted with eight long tulles. Installed on halyards, they move independently in order to offer numerous combinations, and providing an intimate space viewable by all. These tulles, as well as the white floor, are covered with digital projections that accentuate the imagination and fantastic quality of the two dancers’ bodies in full movement.
Two 3D cameras are also placed high up in order to interact directly with these projections, modifying them according to the movements of the dancers on stage.
"When I seek the dreams of my body, I’m both lost and troubled by these new connections. It is as if, at night, I plunged into the ocean and waited for the rising of the sun to illuminate a new world with whom a new relationship would be established "
Anan Atoyama
SHiNMu sails on the unconscious body of each of us
INTERVIEW Anan Atoyama
Marc Ribault: Anan, what is the meaning of "SHiNMu?"
Anan Atoyama: It is a combination of two Japanese words. "Shin" is a homonym that can mean, “body, deep, true, new” and “Mu” means “dream. » I wanted to evoke the central theme that drives this new production: “dreams and the unconscious.” Dreaming is both an individual experience but also universal because everybody dreams. To approach the topic of the unconscious using the language of the body, through a collective creative process, that is SHiNMu’s ambition.
M.R: What is your intention through this work?
A.A: I want to push experimentation and the act of bypassing the intellect a bit further through proving the individual and collective unconsciousness. These states are not easily approachable, but they come out into the open nonetheless, through looking into the dreams we remember when we wake. “SHiNMu” is a performance that does not directly convey any emotion or feeling: Each act is voluntarily complex and possesses several layers so that each audience member creates their own dreamlike voyage in accordance with their physical or psychological state at the time. Nevertheless, upon leaving this experience, I want to create a feeling of internal fulfillment that is powerful and inexhaustible – from a world of possibilities and a sense of communion with the other through primal energy.
What was your creative process on this piece?
Since 2008, I have been devoted to working at the edges of unconsciousness and to finding entry points to free bodies from social and cultural influence. I am committed to not approaching topics in an intellectual manner with dancers. Instead, I try to decipher what their bodies have lived and stored regarding the topic, emotionally and sentimentally, and to bring it out. The dancers dive into themselves in order to reach the things that have not yet surfaced, that are there in deep waters unbeknownst to them.
The body holds our dreams back, because it also adapts itself to the customs and cultures of the society we live in. During the creative process, the body takes the lead, outside of social context and our habits. My work is above all to give dancers the tools to free themselves from these contexts.
Before working with dancers in the studio, I surrounded myself with other sources of reflection and inspiration. For example, thanks to a questionnaire give to about fifty people, I gathered their most prominent dreams as well as the experiences of their unconscious. In the same vein, I met a psychoanalyst in order to draw from his experience and advice. The" Red Book" of CG Jung was also a source of inspiration.
Finally, once work on the body had progressed well, I collaborated with two artists involved in digital art, who were specialists in 3D effects and projection mapping, as well as a composer and a sound technician who put a whole specific soundscape in place. The common desire was to immerse the audience completely in a dreamlike time and place.
Un solo, énoncé du cœur, qui donne corps aux voix éteintes des conflits internationaux.
Anan Atoyama rend hommage à Kazuo Ohno et traduit à nos contemporains sa vision de la danse.
Anan Atoyama explore les relations du vivant, en s’appuyant aux recherches du biologiste P.H. Gouyon
