LAKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK19gan3IoA

Dear Friends and Supporters!

Here is an update about Lake in progress! 

We have had already three rehearsals, starting the work with M (main character) played by Sem and Fisherman played by Piero. The first big-group rehearsal took place on Saturday, 4th April, with live music improvisation. A long but awesome!

Get to know our great  musicians, Anne and Felipe, and their electro-acoustic duo: Off<>zz. They are influenced by classical music, moving towards a more collective experience. We rehears together once a week, and let the music and the scenic presence of the actors influence each other.

You can meet them on 16th April in MixTree, Amsterdam, or visit their website: http://offzz.felipeignacio.info 

Would you like to know more about the project? Then read further!

•          The concept

Lake is a metaphorical place, a changing mirror, the realm of unknown contents, imagination, the open space of transformation, a surface to look at while seeing beyond. Lake is a multidisciplinary theatre performance, where movements, text, visual elements, surrounding sounds, human voice, electronic and acoustic music enter into a dialogue, as organic components of the live creation of shifting materials and emotional states. The transforming construction of this place is in the centre of the play that comes through the assemblage of all the elements. 

•          Motivation

As an important issue of every-day life, social connections and politics, we would like to raise questions about taking risk of facing the unknown as such. The unknown can be within oneself such as in another as overlapping entities. It can be memory, cultural knowledge or the affects of different encounters of life. The way we understand affect is two-folded: it implies vulnerability as being exposed through our body, but at the same time it contains the potential of connection to others and the world.

Furthermore we also deal with the topic of local and global relations as inseparable, existing within each other. The affect of the changing environment on human life, whether in a global or local sense, is also in the focus of our performance coming through visual design, music, movements and text.

-          The characters

There is a human figure, called M, who travels through places, searching without clear aims, trying to find something more, a missing ingredient of his life, something that he cannot leave behind. The performance starts when he arrives to another place, the lake, where magic happens unexpectedly. Magic in this context is a different way of seeing himself, an opportunity to jump, make a decision, find a destination. A ‘goldfish’ comes out of the lake, an undefinable character, neither human nor animal, neither female nor male, who interacts with the man by revealing a mirror in front of him, a new territory to enter. However, entering involves a great risk of vulnerability: losing control, going against the deepest fears, not being able to return to comfortable habits, experiencing something that becomes a part of him forever.

There is a local fisherman, who belongs to the place. He understands the situation well, and mediates between the man and the ‘goldfish’. His realm is the thin line between the surface and the depth of the Lake.

Some tourists come and go, being in panic from losing their planned tracks. Their short conversation with the Fisherman brings about comical scenes. This happens through the opposition of different levels of communication and the contrast between the worried people and the calm, settled man. 

The personal change that the main character goes through becomes visible in the surroundings as well. At the peak of the play all the characters will support him as part of the surroundings, as part of the lake itself. His relationship with the Fisherman improves when he starts listening to his occasionally provocative questions instead of being suspiciously rejecting.

The play has an open end, since we do not know whether the main character decides to take the risk to jump. However, the memory of the unusual encounter with the Goldfish and the confrontation of himself invokes an irreversible change.   

-          Scenography

Visually Lake comes alive through projection on a hanging, semi-transparent textile, and through a reflective material placed on the floor. The changing lights and the video projection guide you through transforming levels of flowing images expressing the emotional intensity of the story.  For example a dark forest transforming in to times square. melancholic, landscape in to a citylife. The characters physically interact with the scenery.    

-          The team

We are an international group based in the Netherlands with different professional backgrounds, such as the Design Academy Eindhoven, the Conservatory of Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam. Merging our knowledge, we are willing to inspire each other, and learn about different forms of creation. On stage there are seven performers, including two musicians whose silhouettes appear from behind the projection.

-          Working process

We are working together in an experimental, organic way. During the rehearsals we combine musical and movement improvisation with written material, leaving an open space to constant interactions of the different forms of creative expressions. In the working process we involve meditation, imagination games, voice and physical training. Additionally, we visit outside locations for rehearsals as well, to include an extended perception of space into our performance.   

-          Reference

We have been invited to perform in June at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance, Design and Space within the category of SpaceLab, DISK Performances. This will be our premier but we would like to bring our show back to the Netherlands. 

For updates you can also visit the LAKE Performance Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/lakeperformance