As a result of the pandemic and the restrictions that regulated performance venues, Triptyque 2021 was streamed online from the School’s studios. This event sparked great interest from the public around the world, with more than 1,000 people having registered to watch the shows!
This new formula was a unique learning opportunity for the students. As Michael Watts explains, “It was also an exciting new experience working with a film crew that gave us a different perspective and approach to live performance.”
The cycle of seasons brings me to think about the cycle of life that we can find in everything we do as humans. The idea is to explore not the changing of the seasons, but the change of the seasons inside each one of us through life experience. A research of powerfully evocative contemporary circus, enigmatic movement, captivating music, which brings to light the strength of the human condition.
Edgar Zendejas has made it his mission to find the freedom of expression despite the challenges and the need to adapt. It is through Seasons that he has collaborated with our students to offer us this first creation of the Triptyque 2021 program.
“My last collaboration with the students resulted in extraordinary moments of reflection on all levels: emotional, creative, intense, meditative.” – Edgar Zendejas
The students and the director were happy to be able to come together to create, as Edgar explains: “There was not a day we did not mention how fortunate we were to be “there” with each other, creating.”
A chain hanging from an aerial rigging attachment point was the genesis of our creation. The cold and heavy weight of each interlocking loop, a metaphor of the attachments and anchors embedded in our internal world and the karma from our past deeds that keep us from sailing into the endless sea. It is only through our dreams and imagination that we are able to remove the constraints and let the wind carry us.
The event then continued in the Chapiteau studio, where Triptyque usually takes place. Although Michael Watts’ creation was inspired by chains, cold and metallic objects, the creator was able to tap into the students’ talent to offer a work filled with lightness.
“Our goal was to transform the object by incorporating lightness, softness, and humor, and it was through the students’ imagination and talent that we were able to explore this concept. I was deeply touched by the openness and generosity that each student brought to the studio each day for all the improvisations and research moments.” – Michael Watts
It is a digestion of lurking anguish; a worrisome winter. It emerges from the cavernous spaces harbouring those monsters that besiege us, the vermin of our need for validation, and our paradoxes. It is the panicked response of living artists stamped in two dimensions. A nightmare fashioned from the gray water of the twisted mop of our subconscious. It is also a purgatory masquerade about the meaning of the stage and of what our gluttonous egos expect from it. A space in which to grapple with the abyss. It is both the disorganized derailment and the urgency of purpose. It is to construct our nightmarish houses before our eyes, and to choose to inhabit them for a moment.
The program’s third piece was inspired by the unique situation of the pandemic. Claudel Doucet’s creation was the last performance of the evening and reflected the paradox that the performing arts faced during the COVID pandemic.
“There was something absurd about the meaning of what we were doing: a show when shows no longer existed. It was the breakdown of any meaning! We decided to make this downfall our partner and the more we went on, the more whimsical and lighthearted this conversation became. I am very impressed with the strength of character and courage of the group I worked with.” – Claudel Doucet
