PuSh Play: Episode 47 De glace (From Ice)

Transcript

 00:01

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 Director of Programming, and today’s episode highlights opening up the space between words and the light of the Northern sun. 

 00:18

I’m speaking with Anne-Marie Ouellette, one of the lead artists behind a glass, or From Ice in English, which is being presented at the Push Festival January 31st to February 2nd, 2025, with both English and French presentations. 

 00:33

Step into a frozen otherworld where friendship transcends the mortal realm in this mesmerizing tale of two girls bound by an unbreakable connection. Inspired by a Nordic literary gem, From Ice weaves its enchantment through smoke, light, and dreamlike disorientation, as ethereal voices guide spectators through snowy obscurity. 

 00:53

L’eau du bain was founded by Nancy Boucier, Anne-Marie Ouellette, and Thomas Sineum. Together they have created seven theatrical and installation works featuring original stage designs. Anne-Marie is Professor of Theatre at the University of Ottawa, a researcher-creator. 

 01:10

She specializes in directing non-actors in avant-garde contemporary creations. Here is my conversation with Anne-Marie. And so, just before we dive into talking a bit more about Dick Glass and about L’eau du bain, I want to acknowledge that I am joining the conversation from the stolen ancestral and traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples, the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh. 

 01:38

I am a settler on these lands. Part of my ongoing education has been reading through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report summary, and also really utilizing the Yellowhead Institute as an educational resource. 

 01:54

We’re coming towards the end of 2024, and at the beginning of the year, Yellowhead released their calls to action accountability a 2023 status update so just reviewing the year the year in review with regard to the calls to action and it really you know stood out to me that you know they shared within since eight years in the eight years since the release of the report and the 94 calls to action only 81 or rather 81 remain unfulfilled and zero were completed in 2023 and actually they stopped doing these annual reports because of that kind of dire outcome basically the lack of meaningful progress towards those calls to action and they identified for really key measurement calls to action you know and just identified that without basically meaningful instituted measurement the reality is that we don’t have the data necessary to measure whether or not whether or not a lot of the remaining calls to action are complete, 

 03:02

there’s no systems to measure it. And yeah, let alone whether Canada is making any meaningful progress towards the completion of these calls to action. So just reflecting on that as we come to the close of 2024. 

 03:16

Yeah. Anne-Marie, where are you joining the conversation from today? Today I’m from my office in Ottawa at Ottawa University. Ottawa is located on the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe nation. 

 03:34

Thank you. And so the glass is based on a Nordic tale. Can you talk about the source of inspiration, why you chose this tale, how you’ve adapted it or interpreted it for the glass? Yes, absolutely. So yes, the glass is an adaptation of a great classic from Norwegian literature called The Ice Palace and written by Thierry Vessas in 1962. 

 04:01

It’s a very beautiful and mysterious novel that tells the story of two young girls called named Sis and Un. Sis and Un are both 11 years old and one day they’re just suddenly struck by this intense and powerful connection. 

 04:19

Is it love? Is it friendship or friendship? That’s not the point. It’s something very stronger, something that changes them deeply and instantly. This age, 11, the age of the character is very important because at 11 you’re right on the edge just between childhood and adulthood. 

 04:43

And every experience is very incredibly intense. Every experience feels incredibly intense. Actually, it’s the first time with the domain that we’re creating a show based on a story. Normally, as you, when you saw Whiteout, we built from different sources of inspiration to create a non-narrative experience. 

 05:08

But this novel, this Vézaz novel is so open and leaves so much to the reader’s imagination. So we thought that left us enough room to create a multi-sensory experience. Yeah, and a multi-sensory experience, and you’re referencing that the narrative is kind of like porous enough because it relates to your practice of generally working with non-linear narrative. 

 05:39

And in your artistic approach, you talk about opening up the space between words, allowing the unspeakable to emerge and the use of fragmented forms that privilege discontinuity so that meaning is not forcibly inoculated but emerges on its own. 

 05:56

Can you elaborate on how you create an environment that fosters this emergence of meaning for your audience? Yes, well, we try to create, as you said, the sensory experience to touch the senses of the spectator before speaking to their reason. 

 06:14

So for that, we try to bring the people inside the fictional space in the center of the fictional space so they can imagine the story in real time with us. We think that leaving room for everyone’s imagination allows us to reach a wide audience. 

 06:34

The Last is not a show for children, neither a show for adults, it’s a show for everyone, age eight and up. And everyone will manage their own experience. This novel, The High Palace, is not a show for children, but the main characters are children, children who are never patronized, always taken seriously. 

 07:00

The poetry is also very present in Vézaz’s writing. Many things are suggested without being confirmed, and mystery covers from beginning to end. So during the process, we worked to magnify this mystery, to keep it alive. 

 07:19

So the stage is very misty. The light that spreads through the fog wrap the audience, bringing them with us onto a frozen lake at dawn. The sound of Iran Man is also very important for us. And for The Last, it is broadcast through headphones. 

 07:40

This offers a very intimate connection between the audience and the characters who are heard very closely without needing to project. That way, the sunscapes reach us in an absolutely enveloping way. 

 07:54

And so you’re already speaking about your visual. aesthetic, which is so powerful and so iconic to your work. Can you describe the visual aesthetic of L’eau du bain, beyond the glass, even though obviously the glass is very much in this continuation of this approach? 

 08:17

And what influences your approach to incorporating these elements in your work? L’eau du bain was founded by three persons, so me, Thomas Cineau, the sun designer, and Nancy Bussière, the light designer. And we always work together from the beginning. 

 08:34

First meeting, we will ask everyone, what do you want to work on? And this is not me as a director coming with a project and an idea and a text and ask them to support it. So, it’s three of us, so lying, so… 

 08:55

Soundlight and space are fundamental. We build everything together from the beginning. For the last, for example, I didn’t adapt the text before the rehearsals, or people normally do. I worked on the text inside the teacher, responding to what we could create with sound, light, and sub-design. 

 09:17

There is that very important scene where the character of Umm disappears in that famous ice palace that we create just with light and fog. It was the first thing that we did in the process. So when we found this, we knew that we had a project there. 

 09:43

So just this example to tell you how the elements work together in a very fine interaction, interaction, and that need many phases of research and as you can imagine. In the novel, nature is central. 

 10:00

The characters’ emotions aren’t described directly. Instead, they are reflected through the transformation of the landscape. And our lighting designer, Nancy Bussire, is captivated by the light of northern countries and by the way the sun, which barely rises above the horizon, changes our perception of everything. 

 10:22

The last takes place over the course of a single winter from the first trees to the great top. And that was our first goal with this adaptation, recreating those landscapes and that northern climate. 

 10:38

So you’ve spoken about, yeah, the use of light, fog, sound, and their pivotal role in the design and the whole concept and development of this work. And they’re so key to the overall experience. And I’d love to hear a bit more about the technology behind the immersive design elements. 

 11:00

Like you spoke about using audio on headphones, for example, whereas you could have had the audio just in the space without headphones. Yeah, whatever you want to share about the choices with regard to technology and design. 

 11:17

Well, the show that you saw in Montreal at Festival de France, called White Tout, staged a winter storm in the theater. So, a real white tout that starts on stage and reaches out into the audience space. 

 11:39

And for this, we developed a scenic device to let the light spread through fog, making the light almost feel touchable. So, with the last, we aim to continue exploring Nordic light. But we wanted to bring the audience closer to the action, placing them at the heart of the experience. 

 11:59

So we designed an immersive set and planned a song designed to be played through headphones. And this choice of headphones, made by Tomas, was tired of fighting against every sound in the space that we can control. 

 12:19

Also, the fun of the moving light and everything. So with headphones, it can offer you a very, very more precise sound conception. And when you have headphones, you feel inside the soundscape. You feel very close to the action. 

 12:43

And the other particularity of our work is something that we also developed for white art and that we keep refined or we keep refining. Refining, it’s a device that help us to make the sound and light very interactive. 

 13:06

So sometimes it’s the sound that triggers light effects. And sometimes it’s the other way around, which helps us to make the people feel that everything, the elements are very interactive and related as it is in the real life. 

 13:25

When you feel a storm, this is not sun somewhere and light somewhere else. Everything works together. Thank you. That’s a really clear explanation. When I hear you describing it, I just get goosebumps. 

 13:40

I’m so excited to experience the glass live because I haven’t experienced it live. And as you’re mentioning, it’s so immersive that it’s really the way it’s designed to be experienced. Your work has featured children’s tales and children themselves as performers. 

 13:59

What is interesting to you about the child’s perspective and presence on stage? I believe that in life and on stage, children have a lot to teach us. And it’s truly from this point of view that we work with them. 

 14:15

Their presence on stage is uncompromising. So we must therefore ensure that they have all the conditions to feel free on stage, that they have the space to keep playing as children do. We don’t want to work with children and make them become small actors. 

 14:34

So as you said, many of our previous creation featured children and teenagers. But for the last, the technical aspects are too challenging to include children. It wouldn’t be enjoyable. and just too limiting for them. 

 14:52

So we’re working with actors, young actors actually, for some of them this is their first professional contract. But what we keep in that work, but what remains important is our desire to erase this artificial border between the adult world and the children’s world. 

 15:17

When I was little, I thought that one day I would feel like an adult, but that day never came. I’m just, I’m still the same person. I just have a little bit more of responsibilities than when I was 11. 

 15:32

Fostering, playfulness, strange, strange, fostering playfulness, strangeness and imagination is also part of this responsibility today. Yes. Thank you so much for just giving some more context to your work, providing a little bit more of it. 

 15:54

So it’s nice to hear it personalized through your voice to understand how the company works together. It makes so much sense that the three of you bring this sound lighting and theater, text-based narrative perspectives all into the process simultaneously to devise the work. 

 16:11

I think it’s so clear in seeing the work and what makes it really stand out just with its completely unique perspective, artistic perspective. Thank you so much. I’m so looking forward to it. I know we’re recording this interview in November and already half the shows are sold out, even actually before our launch because Seattle that says, yeah, I’m has already launched. 

 16:41

So hopefully there’ll be tickets left by the time people hear this, if it’s leading up to the festival. But it just goes to show that I think. people are very intrigued by what you’re what you have to offer yeah yes thank you Gabrielle it was very nice to talk to you and we’re super excited to come to push we heard a lot of good things about the festival and it’s it’s it’s also very exciting to be part of la caesium at the same time so gonna yeah I’m sure we’re gonna meet a lot of beautiful people you just heard Gabrielle Martin’s conversation with Anne-Marie Ouellette of L’eau du bain. 

 17:23

Her show De glass or From Ice will be presented at the Push International Performing Arts Festival from January 31st to February 2nd 2025 at the Roundhouse in Vancouver. The festival will run from January 23rd to February 9th. 

 17:40

I’m Ben Charland and I produced this podcast alongside the wonderful Tricia Knowles. Original music by Joseph Hirabayashi. New episodes of Push Play are released every Tuesday and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. 

 17:54

And for more information on the 2025 festival and to discover the full lineup of more than 20 works of theater, dance, music, and multimedia performances, visit pushfestival.ca. And on the next Push Play… 

 18:09

Our work, I think, looks pretty conceptually serious, you know? And we take it seriously, we build it seriously, but we also joke around and are really silly with each other to make it.