Lab Rats
2021
This 60-minute duet presents an encounter between two humans in a glass cage around which an audience is seated. Like laboratory rats. These two people do not know each other well. They gently try to create a common language in order to understand each other. Without words. They try. They learn before our eyes.
A fourth wall separates the inside from the outside of this cage. A thin wall like a cigarette paper that sometimes becomes transparent and allows a more direct relationship between the performers and the audience.
They discover that the two animals are not very special: they know how to do some things rather well and others rather badly. A peculiarity that they undoubtedly share with all the observers.
Calendar“This intimate performance is an attempt to dive into the endless adjustments a relationship between two people requires. A try to explore the fragility of human relationships and the need to cooperate in order to escape loneliness.
Through the prism of physical risk and the limits of the body, I want to create a vocabulary mixing dance and partner acrobatics, inspired by the non-verbal communication between two bodies.
The special set, which creates an intimacy between the audience and the performers, offers the audience a unique cinematic experience, during which they have the opportunity to observe humans in their solitary intimacy, as one would observe two rats in a laboratory cage.
The relationship between the two men is based on caring, listening and helping each other. The two performers being men, I wish to present a relationship that accepts weakness, doubt, rejects competition and gives room to a gentle clumsiness allowing the audience to smile.”
Marc Oosterhoff
Lab Rats
Concept by Marc Oosterhoff
A duet created and performed by Marc Oosterhoff and Owen Winship
Musical creation by Olivia Pedroli and Maxime Steiner
Artistic collaboration: Bert and Nasi
Outside eyes: Latifeh Hadji and Aude Cattin
Lighting creation Céline Ribeiro
Scenography : Léo Piccirelli
Lighting technician : Filipe Pascoal
Administration : Mariana Nunes, Valérie Niederoest
Diffusion : Isabelle Campiche
Coproduction : Théâtre Sévelin 36, Théâtre de l’Echandole, Fonds des Programmateurices – Reso, La Bâtie – Festival de Genève, Kaserne-Basel, Centre Culturel Suisse à Paris, Cie Betacorn
Résidences de création : Théâtre Sévelin 36, Lausanne (CH), Lo Studio (CH), Südpol Luzern (CH)
Partnerships : Canton de Vaud, Ville d’Yverdon-les-Bains, Ville de Lausanne, Loterie Romande, Pro Helvetia, SSA, Fondations Ernst Göhner, Stanley Thomas Johnson, Philantropique Famille Sandoz, Engelberts, Edith Maryon, SIS, Corodis
With the support of : Dance & Dramaturgy European Network (D&D EU), une initiative du Théâtre Sévelin 36 avec La Bellone Bruxelles (BE), Bora Bora Aarhus (DK), CSC Bassano del Grappa (IT) et le soutien de Pro Helvetia
Photos: Julien Mudry