Episode 59 – Finding the Light 

Gabrielle Martin: Hello and welcome to Push Play, a Push Festival podcast featuring conversations with artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form. I’m Gabrielle Martin, Push’s artistic director, and today’s episode highlights finding the light, theatricality beyond words, and material territories. I’m speaking with Alan Lake, choreographer of Orpheus, which is being presented at the Push Festival January 30th to 31st, 2026.

Alan Lake is a Quebec City-based choreographer, filmmaker, and visual artist whose work fuses movement, image, and symbolism into immersive multidisciplinary worlds. Through his company, Alan Lake Factory, he creates performances and films that explore the body’s dialogue with its environment and with myth, most recently in Orpheus and Parade, which continue his ongoing investigation of transformation and the human condition.

Here’s my conversation with Alan.

Just before we dive into the conversation, I wanna acknowledge that I’m joining the conversation from the unceded, uh, ancestral and traditional lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, and these lands remind us, remind us that every body and every story emerges from place. Um, and as Orpheus descends towards renewal and Parad blurs the line between body and landscape, I’m reminded that connection to place is not symbolic, but lived, uh, material and something that demands ongoing responsibility.

And I’m, as mentioned, joined by Alan Lake, who’s based in Quebec City, uh, the territory of the Huron-Wendat. And Alan, your work often merges the mythic and the human, the past and the present, in what feels like timeless existential inquiry. So what drew you to Orpheus, this myth of descent, and how do you interpret it for the present?

Alan Lake: It was a big question during the process because, uh, we are in a big cycle of this work. The company work always beginning with a film or be an in situ situation, non-theatrical, traditional work, and then put it on stage. Now we begin to put it on stage, and then we’re gonna make the film and the in situ after.

So we reverse the cycle. Um, but Orpheus is the stage work. And, uh, at the beginning, it was important for me to be really theatrical, so to, um, narrate the, the real story of Orpheus. But, but we, we rapidly see that was not, uh, uh, didn’t have interest, uh, uh, uh, with that, not the relation. We don’t talk about Eurydice.

So it was really around this specific Orpheus personage, uh, protagonist. Uh, because it, it, it’s, it’s really interesting because all the myth- We, we, we used to use myths, uh, this old, um, stories that goes on time, and why those story keep to be actual in times is fascinating. Uh, but Orpheus is a strange personage because he’s not a, um, uh, he’s using the art to, um, uh, to, to, to, um, um- Enchantee Enchant, 

Gabrielle Martin: enchant En- enchant 

Alan Lake: everything.

The nature, the rocks, the animate, the inanimate, the human, even Hades. So it’s, it’s kind of the redemption of art. Mm. And it’s really like a man who we don’t know, it’s really a man actual because it’s not a m- we don’t know even if it’s a man. Yeah. So it’s contemporary. 

Gabrielle Martin: Or contemporary. Real 

Alan Lake: contemporary.

Yeah. It’s not like the toxic Sisyph- not, not toxic Sisyph- but it’s not like the, the, the protagonist of Greek myth using all those big force, you know? So, so, so it was, uh, it was a myth who was really like a actual, we don’t know if it’s a hu- it’s a m- uh, what kind of human Or- Orpheus

is. So it could be a woman, it could be a man, it could be everything. And he using art to, uh, uh, enchant everything and passed through time, to death, to life. So me, it was kind of resonate that all those seven could pass and could be Orpheus. So Everybody Is Orpheus. So at the beginning of Everybody Is Orpheus, what was important that this, um, that Orpheus, uh, live, it’s the notion that we kept is the notion of la perte.

What is the la perte in English? 

Gabrielle Martin: Loss. 

Alan Lake: The lost. Yeah. So what is the- Loss … situation that when we l- when you’ve lost. But not, not just a relation like him in, in, uh, Eurydice, but losing a child, uh, losing a grandmother, lo- losing a friend. And what we can d- what you can do to dive into your own hell to find a solution after.

Because he decide to whatever he go, he gonna go to hell, find a way to And after all that tragic, because when you lost, you have a feeling of, uh, sometime that you, you, you don’t wanna breathe again. You d- you, you wanna die too. Or after that you wanna live for two because it’s too important. So how I get out, how I get out and then find the light and then be more, uh, never, not powerful, but that kind of magic to passage all those big passage of lost that is so important right now.

With the, the, the, the essential of the, the, the, the when you lost something, so you have the little, we call it the little tragedy. La tragedie. Now every protagonist live a big tragedy of his own small hell. That how he could dive really, really, really deep, and how he could find the crevasse, fi- find a way to get out.

And we, a- and normally I try to, uh, find some painting because I’m a painter too. So I wanna, um, uh, influence myself. And it was, it was not easy because there was not a lot of work of Orphée that, of, of his. There was, um Uh, animate me. Uh, but some have this u- this little crevice that you can see the light and how it goes through th- and to find and, and build a new world after.

So at the beginning of the piece, I don’t know h- if I could say that, uh, Gabrielle, because it’s, it’s organized, the narrative, it’s organized that at the beginning we have the tragedy. So everything is, you know, like volcanic, um, black stuff. And then everything fall, and then the, the, the, the seven ar- artists try to build all of what they find on stage to at the end find a way to get out.

So they, they building always in the c- uh, construire et déconstruire. Construct and deconstruct the, the, the, the, the setup, and make some new territory each time, and hope at the end you can have a, a kind of fantastic or phantasmagoric, uh, territory, that we can always get something like light and a new world to try to find a way to build a, a new world right now.

Because we, we hitting a wall. So that was quite of, um, uh, uh, distiller. Uh, uh, distiller is, um- Distilling? Mm-hmm … in the process. Uh, the, the process of, um, distiller, no? 

Gabrielle Martin: Distilling? 

Alan Lake: Distilling. Like, uh, essential oil. Mm-hmm. You know, the process, the process of, um, uh, distiller, uh, was, that was it for, uh, Ophélie.

And was more interesting for me that to narrate all the myth on stage. That was not, that was not good. Mm-hmm. 

Gabrielle Martin: That was not good. 

Alan Lake: We did it in Que- that is, it was not, not good because I did, I, I don’t wanna say that because we did it in Quebec with a, a s- a, a co-production with a theater that we have, um… How do you say autrice, Gabrielle?

It’s, um, a writer. 

Gabrielle Martin: Uh, ar- like a playwright? 

Alan Lake: A playwright or a, a writer. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Alan Lake: So a writer really wrote about this story, like actual, and it was really like actor on stage that speak the, the, uh, history of, uh, of Orphée. So we did… So for now, Orphée’s on stage, like the dance, uh, um, project. It’s not talking about that.

It’s, it’s really dive into the deep of lost and how we build a new world with, with art, with the, the… But we’re not talking about art. It’s not, because I don’t like when art speak of w- art. Yeah. It’s beginning to be, like, strange, but more the redemption of the power of what we do, and put- 

Gabrielle Martin: The creative energy.

Alan Lake: Yes. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Alan Lake: It is, it’s not political commitment of art in art, because you’re not gonna see this comment in the piece. Not at all. Mm-hmm. 

Gabrielle Martin: Yeah. To me, it is so, so pertinent for the moment we’re living in, and it’s so visceral. And the journey that the artists go on just feels so tangible and so relatable, um, in terms of the, like, despair and loss of the moment, but also this, like the collective, yeah, creative energy to keep building together.

Um, and then, you know, I f- to me, Le Cri des méduses, s- you know, similarly kind of existential crisis or a group navigating through shipwreck, um- How would you say your interest has evolved since Le Cri de Méduse or are you, do you find that you’re still exploring s- the same theme through a different lens?

Or yeah, can you just talk about, like, where you are at now with your work compared to, was it five or six years ago when you did Le Cri de Méduse? Yeah. Yeah, 

Alan Lake: it’s really interesting, uh, question because at the beginning, because we were in a pandemic situation, so our work Parad with four dancer, because it was not a good idea to do a group because I love the contact and the partnering and the touching of humans.

So have a group during the pandemic was so, uh, hard for me, so we decided to do a quatuor. It was for a solo because we didn’t have, um, opportunity to, to touch ourself. So to, to do a big form again, now it’s seven, it was directly connect with the end of the Cri and say, “Okay, what can we do next? Can we, cannot do a Cri de Méduse two.”

So the way that the acts of research, of gestures, okay, a group, how could move… How we did that in the Cri. So how can… Not, not shift already, but so all the setup was, uh, a desire of, uh, mou. How do you say mou, uh, in, in English? Is that soft or- Oh, so- yeah, 

Gabrielle Martin: soft. Yeah … soft? 

Alan Lake: Because, uh, in the Cri de Méduse we have a glue with his own, uh, um, material movement, and it was that a glue is, uh…

Is that a glue? A slime. We have a slime. Yeah, slime. Yeah. Yeah. Slime. So the quality of the slime, so for now I said, uh, that I want a stage that look not like a slime, but getting mou, everything soft. Because Le Cri de Méduse was a wall, so tangible, with tan- uh, uh, um, you know, uh, hard. So now it was the opposite.

It was a desire of slime everywhere, but, uh, slime everywhere is not possible. So, uh, the, the, the, the tissu. The tissu is, um- 

Gabrielle Martin: Fabric … 

Alan Lake: yeah, a fabric. A big curtain. Could, how could we just hang it with rope and then simulate different kind of landscape and different kind of slime, but with the fabric. So it was, it was kind of, it was according to the, uh, story of Orpheus was so great, but according to the Cri it was opposite that was animate and resonate me as an artist that did not do the same Uh, so, and, and, and Le Cri was, uh, all the matters was li- was liquid.

You have, uh, colors. We have, uh… So in Orpheus I impose myself to not have a liquid, to not have colors. So how could we do some, um, uh, different kind of work? So, uh, the fabric is changing the territory all the time, so the colors form the, from the setup and not from the accessory like Le Cri des Méduses.

And it’s the same with the gesture, with the, with the… And I don’t think that Le Cri des Méduses was… I think that, uh, Orpheus is a little bit more theatrical, like really theatrical. Mm. And Le Cri des Méduses was more about image was like living painting. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Alan Lake: And for now, of course, I think it’s really more theatrical, but the word don’t wanna sou- uh, don’t wanna get out of the mouth.

It’s more the situation. Like, the prologue is really… Each tragedy is really, you’re gonna see really theatrical. It’s really a, an, an exercise, but it’s not exercise, exercise. But it was, you know, the process of to be really theatrical and then dive, uh, into the movement after. Uh, then from Le Cri, I was, um, it was important for me at the end that to do a, a, a homage.

A homage, what is a homage is? Homage. Homage. Oh. Homage?

Yeah. Yeah. At the real painting of Géricault, so do our own, uh, Radeau de la Méduse. 

Gabrielle Martin: For Le Cri, yeah. 

Alan Lake: For Le Cri. But we didn’t know if human, uh, get out or find the light because you have just this gold woman who just get out of the water, and then humans just g- get out like slime, and they don’t know… We don’t know if they’re living.

We don’t know if they’re going to the ground again. And then you have this baroque gold woman and just going like a knife, like, um, uh, into the- 

Gabrielle Martin: Cutting the image? Yeah … 

Alan Lake: uh, into the, the, the, the, the water again. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm. 

Alan Lake: So we don’t know if the humans not gonna find a way, let’s, let’s keep the nature. Let’s go, and then that’s the solution.

And with Orpheus, we really wanna start with the tragedy of Orpheus at the last, but really that the protagonist find a way to get out. So i- at the end, we hope that the light is there. It’s, it’s more like, uh… It was important for me, uh, to, to trying to find a light, and it was not important in the Cri de Méduse.

Mm. It was… Because sometime we don’t know, uh, w- we, we never… Human is so bizarre. We never learn about what… We always do the same mistake. So we don’t know. Even if we have a child, you have child, I have a, a, a daughter, so I want a future for her. But I… But we don’t know now if we have solution sometime, and if the solution is just to let go and then the nature come back and hope that we have

is, um, uh, is, is really tragic because the maenad, the, the, the mythic woman just gonna cut him all in piece and just throw all his body into the river. And then in the Ile de Lesbos, qu’on, qu’on, qu’on, qu’on appelle the poetry isle There’s some knife or muse that’s just gonna take his piece of body and then do a, a sepulture.

How do you say sepulture? Is a kind of sculpture. Even if its head is cut, it continues singing. So- Wow … you know, this continue singing, and that’s, that’s why, uh, he’s turning into a constellation. Don’t… The, the part of the final way to be part of nature, be a constellation. So at the end, uh, the, we try to become, you know, a constellation.

Gabrielle Martin: And yeah, thank you so much for just, like, bringing us through your thought process behi- behind that. And, uh, I’m really thrilled for those people who have got to see, had the opportunity to see Le Cri des Méduses, and who will hopefully now see Orpheus- Wow … and see that contin- like continuity or continuation, um- Yeah

or the development really, um- Yeah … towards hope. Um, and so you mentioned also that you’re a painter. You’re a visual artist. Um, you’ve talked a lot about the visual elements, um, materiality, color, choices around that in Orpheus. Um, and yeah, you know, the sonography, the movement, the light, the sound, it, they all in this piece, like, seamlessly complement each other.

So can you speak more about your approach to dramaturgy across these disciplines, and how each element develops in conversation with the other? 

Alan Lake: Uh, yes, and it’s, it’s, it’s particular to for, uh, from each project. Uh, Le Cri des Méduses was different. A film is different because, uh… But I think that many artists work on that, uh, like that in studio.

But really work with the matters and what’s happened, and coordinate the resonance of what you see matters, uh, and the artist, and always work together. It, it is not like, you know, separating and then a collage. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Alan Lake: We’re not lo- working like that. Uh, and particularly in Orpheus, because we have all this big curtain or fabrics, it was really specific of those movements.

So we were obligate to know how the fabric move, and how we can hang it, and it was really, um, difficult for the dancer because, uh, with Le Cri des Méduses you have, uh, something on wheels, and you can always just turn and put it in spot and it is the same way. A fabric organize and it’s, you turn it and you don’t have the same place, and it was, “Ah, how can we find a way?”

Because I want that- things be similar. So we ha- do a lot of improvisation and creation, but at the end the show is really all is written. Uh, written? 

Gabrielle Martin: Yeah, written. Yeah Determined. Set. 

Alan Lake: Yeah. Yes, set. Yeah. Really, really set. And, uh, so it was bizarre with Orpheus, it was a choreographic of the territory of the fabric and the curtain without dance.

So all the bodies al- always engage. And now I take the rope, and now I take the fabric. So, uh, then we have, you know, the fall territory. Then we have the, uh, L territory. Then we have the river. Then we have the volcano. See? So we give all name territory, and then it was not easy to put, but it’s was easy for me to watch the territory and say, “It’s this kind of choreographic picture that could go into that territory.”

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Alan Lake: So we just put it in a, and normally it’s not like that. It’s an association of a collage of choreographic material that goes. And then the f- and then the matters, uh, is just put into it. But Orpheus was really like, um, a body who always wanna move the stage. So, um- At the middle of the process, the artist was not exhausted about all this, uh, fabrics and rope, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s great to pass, uh, uh, i- into the process to then after, “Oh, okay, we did a good job.”

And then we can have fun. But not fun. They always have fun. We have- always have fun because it’s really important to g- if you want to dive into the human, you have to really, um, create a humanity and expose the humanity of the group, uh, in the studio. To reveal humanity is just kind of an e- uh, an exchange, so we really need to, to, to, to work, um, n- not separately.

It’s, it’s, it’s… We need to dive into the matters and the dance. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Alan Lake: Or, you know- 

Gabrielle Martin: The environment informs the movement. 

Alan Lake: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Gabrielle Martin: Informs the environment. Exactly. Or the, the movement is there’s a certain choreography just in man- manipulating the environment. 

Alan Lake: Yes. 

Gabrielle Martin: Creating the, the territory. 

Alan Lake: And at the beginning was a kind of a ch- uh, a, a, a, a défi.

Is that a challenge, or défi it’s challenge? Challenge. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. Okay, 

Alan Lake: challenge. To, okay, you have a manipulation body, and then you have a pedestrian body, and then you have a dance body, and then… But how could it be the same body all the time? Because, uh… So we try to find some way to don’t have a lot of different body in the space, but similar.

Even if I’m manipulating, I’m… So, so it’s always a kind of challenge. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that was achieved just through the prompting of quality and kind of visual- visualization of the, the territory they were inhabiting? Like, how did you get there with them? 

Alan Lake: I think that it’s important and we have a, um, a chance.

We have the chance, even it was not, uh, a view. I- if it was not. We find resid- residency in theater a lot during the process. So it’s important when you have set up like that to- always have a studio or a theater that you can, uh, build the set up for one week or two week, and then it’s part of it. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Alan Lake: And actually, it’s really hard to do that kind of form because we don’t have the financial.

So we are in a studio that at 5:00 we need to just get out and… So it’s not possible. It’s not possible. We need, um, to, uh, have a one-week or two-week home. We arrive at home, we have all the set up, all the accessory, and, and we always in it, in it, in it, and then we find some way. Mm-hmm. I think, I think it’s, it’s a, it’s, um, it’s a way to do it.

So, um, we keep pushing to that, that kind of pro- uh, process exist even in our financial situation right now. 

Gabrielle Martin: Absolutely. I wanna talk a bit about your film work, um, because that’s one of the mediums you practice in. Yeah. And, uh, we are so blessed to also be able to share your film, Parade, here at the Push Festival alongside Orpheus.

Um, and this film, it feels like a parallel myth, a processional meditation on transformation, where the body becomes both landscape and symbol. How does your relationship to camera and frame differ from your relationship to the stage, uh, or not, or, or what remains the same? 

Alan Lake: In cinema, you can have in two plan where you are in summer, and then the next plan you are in winter.

So you don’t have to choreograph all the transition of the transformation. So you, you talk about transformation. So with the editing, there’s a lot of sculptural feeling in the transformation that I’m really interested in And it’s different than stage because in stage you need to see the tension of the transformation and all the time, the real time of, how do you say art vivant?

Art vivant, living art? Yeah. You know, the living art, the living time, the real time on stage on transformation. And you see the tension and you feel it in a body way, kinesthetic way. In the film, it’s different kind of tension. It’s about, it’s not more visual, but it’s really like editing, jumping. It’s brain, it’s Lynch.

You know, Lynch that passed away this year was really not tragic, but, you know, big guy of cinema just passed away. So all those kind of dream and cauchemar. What is cauchemar? 

Gabrielle Martin: Nightmare. 

Alan Lake: Nightmares. Nightmares. You know, in nightmares you can lost a harm and it doesn’t hurt. You just can walk again and it’s not gore because it’s beautiful.

You see the sunset again and then you jump into a duet and then you have texture on you. It’s really hard to choreograph on stage all this fantasmagorie. So that’s really what I interest to go more in a kind of subconscience. Subconscience. Subconscious, yeah. 

Gabrielle Martin: Yeah. Yeah. 

Alan Lake: Yeah. Thank you, Gabrielle. Situation of pain.

So the stage is really physical. It’s like you need to feel. And then the film is physical too because you have the matters, you have the body. But the story and the jump cut of the editing just put it in the brain that it’s different for me. And I can push. Parade was not like the last pushing the transformation of the sculptures on the body.

Parade was especially in a piece, a film during the pandemic too. So it was really hard for me to not, I talked later that it was really hard to not touch the artist. So in the film Parade, I create four territory in an old factory, not factory, but Was not a factory, but it was a kind of old theater that you…

Different space. So I create four different space that people really cannot touch. And yeah, the, the, the, the, the, you talk about the visual. You can go into a visual, uh, in the next film. It was, it could be a pleasure to share the film, uh, Orpheus, uh, in January, but it is not create. It could be really great to have, but now we, uh, like I said before, we reverse the process, so we’re gonna do the film in during the summer.

But I, I’m gonna go back to really big transformation of the body, and, uh, talk about Orpheus was, uh, have a power of, uh, animate the inanimate. Is that the way you say it? Like mineral, like flower nature, like rocks. So there, in the film, how the environment or the territory can move to around the dancer, and it’s not possible in, on stage.

So we really gonna push in during the summer the metamorphose, metamorph, morph, meta-mo- 

Gabrielle Martin: Metamorphosis 

Alan Lake: Of the territory and with the body. I don’t know how I’m gonna do that. 

Gabrielle Martin: Ah, 

Alan Lake: yeah, yeah. But it, it’s, it’s re- it’s really gonna talk about big transformation Uh, more than that in Parad. But Parad, uh, uh, I, I, I’m really happy to share and talk about the film when you, when we gonna see it in, in Vancouver.

But, you know, time pass in, in the, in four years ago, so you wanna do another film. So it’s different. And, and Le Cri des mensonges, it’s, it’s, it’s like, like six years or even more. So wow. Um, incredible. It’s, 

Gabrielle Martin: it’s so great. Like, I knew that you were regularly creating films, but I didn’t realize that it’s part of your process with each project to realize it across- Oh, yeah

these spaces and mediums. There you go. I’m so looking forward to seeing what you do with Orpheus. Um- A- 

Alan Lake: a- and after that, after the film, the process is really to go, uh, uh… Because the Institute is born because we were doing film, and the situation in the territory where it was so great. And at the end when we, when it was the wrap, you know, okay, it’s a wrap.

I say, “Oh, it’s bizarre that people, public cannot be part of a, a last showing of the ephemere. Uh, ephemere, no? Um- 

Gabrielle Martin: Ephemeral. 

Alan Lake: Ephemeral situation. So we said, “Next time we doing film, we’re gonna do a show, a real public show that during Institute.” And then the next time it was, okay, we part of Institute, but at the end of this in- we’re gonna film it and do it.

Right. And after we have the re- the, the reflection of how do we put that on stage. So, uh, so now we’re gonna put Oph- Orpheus, uh, on film, uh, during the summer. But next year, uh, after that in Quebec, we’re gonna create a Institute of all- Site. Site specific. Yeah … of all the… A site specific. Oh, sorry. In, in English it’s site specific.

Uh, so a site specific with all the,

the cycle of Orpheus. 

Gabrielle Martin: Wow. 

Alan Lake: So is that, that gonna be the film in it? Is that gonna be the stage? W- what, what, what trace? Is that, is that trace? La trace? Mm-hmm. 

Gabrielle Martin: Mm-hmm. 

Alan Lake: What trace that e- each medium or discipline can rest when you go, uh, on, in this kind of a cycle? 

Gabrielle Martin: Yeah, what a great, uh, process for discovery and, uh, and just delving deeper into the world that you’ve created.

Um, and then, yeah, seeing how it’s developed in relation to a natural environment or- Yeah … or a different medium. Yeah. Um, Alan, thank you so much for talking about just, yeah, sharing everything you’ve shared today and, and giving us such a greater insight into the work we’ll get to experience here in the new year.

Alan Lake: I’m so glad to be there. 

Gabrielle Martin: Excited. 

Alan Lake: Uh, I’m so excited to share the work and then, uh, if we can talk to public after even the film and the show, uh, so good