Mystic-Informatic is an unexpected meeting place of dance, mycology and digital technologies. The work is concerned with questions around the meaning of dance in the context of the digital turn, a fascination with the enigmatic world of mushrooms, and a concern for the environment and the waste produced in the constant renewal of technology. In a recent book by anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom of the End of the World, we learn that the matsutake mushroom only grows in the ruins of capitalism, in clear cut forests, landscapes devastated by exploitation where no life was thought possible, and with its growth brings a glimmer of optimism.
Mystic-Informatic takes the mushroom as a metaphor and proposes dance as a force of resistance capable of breathing new life into technological waste: outdated technological objects. Here, technology is diverted from its primary function. Through dance and through their bodies, the artists connect to technology in a sensory, corporal and imaginative way. In a punk, apocalyptic and feminist spirit, they give power to dance and exorcise their ecological despair.
Collective creation
Audrée Juteau, N. Zoey Gauld, Catherine Lavoie-Marcus, Ellen Furey, in collaboration with Marilyne St-Sauveur
Performance
Audrée Juteau, N. Zoey Gauld, Catherine Lavoie-Marcus, Ellen Furey/ Marilyne St-Sauveur
Initiated by
Audrée Juteau
First conversation and administration
Audrée Juteau and N. Zoey Gauld
Visual artist
Martin Beauregard
Sound design
Geneviève Crépeau
Lighting designer
Karine Gauthier
Captation
Albedo
Creation residencies:
Studio 303, L’Écart, L’Annexe-A, L’Agora des Arts,
Centre de création O vertigo, Centre d’Art Diane-Dufresne thanks to theater Hector-Charland
With the support of Canada Council for the arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and Entente de partenariat territoriale CALQ et Abitibi-Témiscamingue