What if there were other realities to which we had no access? Other lives, other worlds, other deaths, as close as they are imperceptible.
No reality now is an experiment combining dance on stage and virtual reality. It invites us into a beyond - inaccessible, unfathomable, unintelligible, like the death it ventures to stage.
On stage, a funeral wake is surprised by a storm. The rain intensifies, the light flickers. And suddenly, the image appears. You're not dreaming: your virtual reality headset is inviting you to live a parallel experience...
As you visualise yourself sitting in the same place, the virtual copy of the scene distorts and takes liberties, offering a double reading of the play. As you move back and forth, a dialogue begins between these two visions, like a diptych or a confrontation, expanding their own fields of resonance.
In No reality now, choreographer Vincent Dupont has teamed up with immersive experience designer Charles Ayats to revive one of his previous works, Souffles. Betting on the complementary nature of virtual reality and live performance, the two artists not only 'augment' this 2010 creation, they also offer two simultaneous versions, between which spectators are free to move.
Three characters (Death, the Dead and the Shaman) occupy the stage and a virtual stage. In the stands, spectators are equipped with a virtual reality helmet fitted with a handle, which they can take off and put back on at will. In this way, they can alternate as they wish between the virtual and real worlds. Disturbing vision, materialising the invisible in sound or breath, and offering new sensations, digital technology extends the field of perception of this great mystery: that of death and the passage to the afterlife.
No reality now is based on an augmented stage solution, enabling the virtual reproduction of a theatre, with the performers moving as avatars on a virtual stage. The movements and movements of the performers on stage are captured using motion capture equipment and a 3D engine and reproduced in an immersive world in real time during the show, using a live XR control room.
