DATADREAM is a ritualistic solo by Steven Michel, in which he playfully draws analogies between the technological and the spiritual.

Since the dawn of time, humans are travellers who access parallel worlds through the mind and the collective unconscious. Over time another portal opened granting us entrance to an additional dimension: the infinite window that is the world wide web. Internet has unearthed and recycled archetypes rooted in ancient mythologies, developing a vocabulary inspired on the themes of liquidity, magic and biology. It can be perceived as an ecosystem, landscaped and inhabited. In this digital grotto birds tweet, bells chime, teeth are blue, viruses proliferate and trolls roam.

As a digital shaman and a contemporary trickster, Steven embarks with the audience on a dreamlike and psychedelic exploration into the meanders of a dark web. The world into which we are invited oscillates between altered states of consciousness, new age belief and new media doctrine, wireless communication and occult practices. DATADREAM wants to reclaim the importance of the body and the voice in a digital

era. To not simply regard the “virtual” as an escapist technology, but to consider it as an invisible facet of a reality we live in, and in which everything is connected. A starting point to create new group- bonding rituals.

DATADREAM fuses choreography, visual storytelling and experimental video. It is a physical and vocal incantation of the past, the present and the future.

CREDITS

CONCEPT AND PERFORMANCE: Steven Michel
SOUND AND MUSIC COMPOSITION: Raphaëlle Latini and Mathieu Bonnafous
VIDEO DESIGN: Laetitia Bica
LIGHTING DESIGN: Jan Fedinger
COSTUME DESIGN: Valérie Hellebaut
DRAMATURGICAL ASSISTANCE: Lynda Rahal
ARTISTIC ADVICE: Théo Mercier
OUTSIDE EYE: Jan Martens
VIDEO SOURCE MATERIAL: Laetitia Bica and Steven Michel
VIDEO EDITING: Jan Fedinger and Laetitia Bica
TECHNICAL DIRECTION: Nele Verreyken
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Sylvie Svanberg
PRODUCTION: GRIP
INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTION: A propic / Line Rousseau and Marion Gauvent
RESIDENCIES: Montévidéo (Marseille, FR), WorkSpaceBrussels (BE), Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix Hauts-de-France (FR), wpZimmer (Antwerp, BE) and CAMPO (Ghent, BE)
COPRODUCTION: CND Centre national de la danse (Paris, FR), C-TAKT (Limburg, BE), Le Gymnase CDCN Roubaix Hauts-de-France (FR), wpZimmer (Antwerp, BE), CAMPO (Ghent, BE) and Perpodium (BE)
WITH THE SUPPORT OF: the Flemish Government, the City of Antwerp, Tax Shelter of the Belgian Federal Government and Cronos Invest

This project is supported through the framework of cultural cooperation between the Flemish Community and the Region Hauts-de-France

For more informations, press map, financial and technical conditions please contact Line Rousseau or Marion Gauvent

Photo: Maarten van den Abeele