Marie Chouinard

Cantique n° 1

In her new work Cantique n° 1, Marie Chouinard explores the relationship between movement and sound, with the help of a uniquely designed computer program and real-time interaction between musicians. Chouinard offers her insight into the use of new technologies in performance. As a project by an experienced and oftentimes audacious choreographer and performance artist, Cantique n° 1 is making a daring and innovative contribution to the field of dance and new media. The stage is set up with two giant screens, one on the right and one on the left. Two musicians, playing music and sound with their computers, are linked to one screen and engaged in what Chouinard terms a "conversation." On the screens are projected a series of images selected live and directly related to the sounds the musicians produce. The images come from a bank of choreographed movements recorded by Chouinard and two dancers before the performance. Thanks to the personalized computer application designed for the piece, the musicians control the images and therefore the dancers’ movements through the music or sound they play live on stage. Each movement is therefore linked to an audio event.

The application used in the performance emphasizes the idea of time and has been developed by Jimmy Lakatos and Alexandre Burton of Artificiel.net. They use MAX-MSP and NATO software for real-time manipulation of sound and video. This project is Chouinard’s first major foray into technological applications for choreographed works. The work has premiered in Vienna, Austria, at the ImPulsTanz festival in July 2001.

Marie Chouinard produced an entire series of works that originated from Cantique n° 1: Cantique n° 2 (2003), a multi-screen film, and Cantique n° 3 (2004), which uses an interactive device to allow spectators to set in motion two actors on a screen.

Cantique n° 3 was shown at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from September 20 to December 9, 2007, for the exhibition e-art: New Technologies and Contemporary Art, Ten Years of Accomplishments by the Daniel Langlois Foundation.