The non-degradable piece
CREATION 2019
Costume, Chorégraphie & Performance : Clara Grosjean
Photos : Victoria Nash
" This piece questions our relationship to pollution - environmental, but also noise, visual or mental pollution. It started with the desire to create a dance from a costume, with its potentials and its limitations, instead of considering the costume as an additional prop to the dance piece. How a certain cloth could influence how a body will move? How I could embody the qualities, textures or sensations that the costume would offer me? How could a restrictive costume help me to go beyond my creative practice and refresh my way of making dance? The first intention wasn’t to make a political piece, but the choice of using recycled plastic bags from a supermarket transformed the piece into an engagement to the ecological issues that are happening nowadays. I ended up creating a structure in plastic bags sewed together. I can be and move inside, with gaps for my head and limbs.
Trapped in this plasticized chaos, my body tries to find its pathways. Sometimes resistant, sometimes overwhelmed, it gets carried by its own wastes. Its fragile and transient human nature is opposed to the timelessness of its shell. Without any drama, it reflects how the society is evolving with the overproduction of plastic which impacts the eco-system. The spectators can’t see precisely the movements of the body as the plastic bags are floating around and blurry the body’s shape. The body is attracted by some artificial wind, produced by three fans on the side. It is an illusory escape, an attempt to get away where the air would be breathable. It could also subjectively represent a state of mind where the plastic bags would be thoughts, and the overthinking mind is brooding; the body trapped by plastic, the mind trapped by thoughts. Finally, the plastic bags are noisy, and the background music enhance the overwhelming feeling, as if that would be an endless fight to get rid
of the pollution. "
Supported by Northern School of Contemporary Dance and the Riley Theatre (Leeds, Uk)