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Cross by is born out of the meeting of Arvers Isabelle and Nathalie Negro during an artistic residency in the Nord Pas de Calais.

From the mutual discovery of their universe, crossings were quickly made between piano and video games film making. The work of Isabelle Arvers, machinima specialist, is interested in their hybridization with other art forms: music, painting, sculpture, installation in situ, interactivity. In recent years, the work of Nathalie Negro – pianist – is crossed by exploring the repetition of musical patterns. As an extension to this research, she returns to a narrower form around the iconic Steve Reich piece: Piano Phase, which is the center of gravity of this show.

Cross by is an exploration of what Piano Phase can evoke during its interpretation: a sense of split personnality, a duality between inside and outside, the face to face complexity, a spiritual introspection, but also an approach of trance through melodic and rhythmic power. The interpretation of Piano Phase, is close to physical and intellectual performance,in which the concept of endurance is very present. Visually this means wandering visions of perpetual progress, surpassing oneself in labyrinthic, aquatic, lunar, deser or mountainous spaces. Cross by tells the story of a man coming from far away in a quest for self-realization.

The iterative process of the work requires a listening between observation and letting go, installing an undefined relationship to time. It is precisely this abstract space, sometimes unsettling, that interests us. The passage between the meditative and ecstatic is represented by the music of Arvo Pärt and John Cage. The sound spatialization allows the audience to fully experience the musical and visual immersion feeling.