Vision seeks out new ways of being together by exploring a seemingly simple question, what does it mean to see and, in that same instant, to look?
Éric Minh Cuong Castaing
For nearly two decades now, the Shōnen company, born of the impetus of the choreographer and visual artist Éric Minh Cuong Castaing, has been exploring the bond between art and society. Advocating projects rooted within the social sphere, and never effacing the questions bound up with inclusion, the company has specialised in forms of alter-spectacle, notably through collaborations with performers living with disabilities.
The purpose of Vision is to place emphasis upon the gaze that spectators cast upon the performers, and in turn upon the gaze directed back at them. Whether dancers, actors, or musicians, all the artists taking part in this production live have, to varying degrees, visual impairments: partially sighted or blind, their vision blurred, doubled, or peripheral, when they are not altogether deprived of sight. The performance therefore places the emphasis on other senses: hearing, of course, but also touch.
Inclusion, as will be understood, lies at the very heart of the endeavour. Yet inclusion also entails the participation of the spectators in this other way of conceiving the relationship between art and society. Thus, from a performance, one passes into a promenade through the spaces of the Théâtre du Châtelet, not only is it another way of inhabiting the space, it is also an act of solidarity and of fraternity.
