Laser scheme

When Hélène Langevin looks back at her childhood, her memory often travels downstairs.

The basement of her grandmother’s house in Trois Rivières, Que., is where the Montreal-based choreographer first practised the time-honoured tradition of snooping for inspiration.

Inside steam chests and armoires, she found finely preserved wedding dresses, tutus, top hats and canes — just a few of the narrative materials necessary for transformation, disguise and devised theatrical escape.

A few years ago, with the pandemic shuttering theatres across the country, Langevin returned to those early experiments in self-discovery and forgivable mischief.

The 66-year-old choreographer and her creative partner Audrey Bergeron began developing a show about the childlike audacity and tenacity required to make believe even when forces beyond our control deny us the right to play.

In Glitch, the latest production on Manitoba Theatre for Young People’s mainstage, four performers — Carlos Mendoza, Léa Noblet Di Ziranaldi, Chloé Ouelle-Payeur and Marie-Ève Dion — head underground to a dimly lit storage room beneath an abandoned theatre.

Like Langevin’s grandmother’s home, the space is full of closed boxes and crates whose contents inspire the surrealist dance show to come.

But the quartet of explorers is quickly joined by what Langevin calls “the fifth character”: a laser beam that directs the playful excursion. As the characters search for light in the darkness, the laser beam finds them and beckons them to move.

This laser beam isn’t the handheld pointer favoured by geeky lecturers or immature pranksters. Instead, it’s a computerized, programmable projection device that ricochets across the stage to define the theatrical space.

Co-ordinated by Jimmy Lakatos with effects by sound director Guy Fortin, the beams can dance together to form barriers, conic entrapments or super-spy tripwires that could trigger the theatre’s intruder alarm.

Like many of the shows created by the production’s company, a young people’s dance theatre called Bouge de là, Glitch is intended to tell its story through the kinesthetic potential of the human body as it navigates the container of the performance itself.

The result is stark imagery and emotive movement, a combination that has allowed Bouge de là to perform in dozens of countries while traversing linguistic barriers.

“Dance is the common word,” says Langevin, who co-founded Bouge de là in 2000.

“It’s a body language. Everyone in all countries understands it. The kids react to the body. If it’s very exciting, they will jump on their feet. If they see quiet, they will be quiet. If it’s laughing, they will laugh.

“There is always a direct reaction from the bodies on stage to the bodies of the children. That’s what I like about this — it’s not about language.”

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