Jeanette Keane spoke to Alexandre Iseli of Tipperary Dance about Replicas, which opens Uillinn Dance Season 2025.
What sparked the idea for Replicas? Was there a specific moment or question that started it?
I don’t usually pick a topic to illustrate. In my work I follow the contours of my intuition, and the works evolves as a response to my close environment… and to the larger political, cultural environment we live in.
If I had to summarize, the project took a few detours for a number of practical reasons. And the starting point of this last version is the idea to put together people whose way to move, perform, think and interact I like and find interesting. Murielle as co-director of the project, Thomas who was initially going to compose the music but is now playing live as a full protagonist, and Eleni who was in my last work Tempo Rubato.
The starting point is that the work is based on listening, responding and process. This is a criteria of value, which brings us to the topic, and the components of the work.
The title Replicas suggests duplication or imitation, what does it mean in the context of this piece?
Yes, don’t forget that I am natively a French speaker. So I give myself some license to cross the boundary of language a little bit creatively.
In English it suggest duplication, which it is more an open question, almost an irony, because there is nothing duplicative about this work.
In French, the same word Réplique means slightly different things. It means ‘a strong answer’, a ‘strong reaction’. It is also a scientific word in plate tectonics: une réplique, is the aftershock, triggered by an earthquake.
So essentially a response. This work is a felt response to the current ambience of hyper-restriction, hyperpolarization, hyper-rationalisation that seems to be settling all over the world.
Musician on stage; how did this collaborative process begin? Thomas has been an active part - when did you start working together?
I met him in a Laboratory in France. Following an improvisation, he commented about my performance, speaking about space and verticality, which is a very usual language for a dancer, but very unusual coming from a musician. I immediately knew we had common ground.
We started working together when he created the music for my last piece Tempo Rubato. He doesn’t make music as an object, he is very sensitive to sound, mix, the present moment, in many ways he is elusive, like dance is, but he is also an extremely experienced professional, so we know we can rely.
And your dancers; how do they shape, even influence your work?
They entirely shape it, and they don’t at the same time. I chose a dancer because I love their presence, their physicality, the way they move, how they interact in the team. So this sets the colour. The moment they are onstage, they ARE the work.
Then most of my work is trying to find ways for them to build the confidence to be exactly who they are, to be transparent to themselves. For me a performer is not really a centre of expression. A dancer is translating the world into their own language, their own way to be. They give their own colour to ‘say’ – a movement, or a form. And what I am interested in is not the form itself, but the colour it takes when the dancer is performing it.
So Eleni and Thomas have full responsibility of the work when they perform, they make it. It’s theirs. I’d say, Replica as a work defines my view, but the content of the performance, in a way, it’s theirs.
In the creation of this piece, were there any unexpected shifts during development?
Yes and no. Shifts are what I want so I can’t really say they are unexpected. From the original project, we did have shifts in the cast. Initially it was going to be a dance duet with accompanying music. Now it has become a duet between a dancer and a drummer.
It’s interesting that you mention this word shifts. It is one of the things I loved with Eleni during our first project together: she was doing these physical, brutal shifts in space. Like she was allowing herself to instantly change lane, or change idea, in the middle of her movement. And that is one of the main topics of the work. The fact that we are not constant, we’re not consistent, rational, beings, we shift constantly, in non-rational ways.
This actually expresses our true nature, and I wanted this to be present in the work. I jokingly said that I wanted to name this work ‘a piece of shifts’.
How does the gallery space at Uillinn influence the way Replicas is experienced?
The gallery really suits the work, because the work is not a piece per se. In the sense that it is not produced, with specific lighting. It is made to be shared in proximity, and I am not specifically attached to ensure that spectators have very specific conditions or viewing angles. I am not applying such control over the interaction between the performance and the audience. The audience is also responsible for the experience they are seeking here. I am not here to deliver a quality-controlled product.
How do you think Replicas speaks to our current cultural moment?
It is a direct response to the type of work infrastructure that we have in Ireland. And it is a response to the cultural, social and political environment we live in. Our environment is about extracting value, exploiting resources, optimising time, maintaining consistency at any cost, order and hierarchy to keep things going. Replica is the opposite of all this.
Replicas in many ways, is a forbidden, child-like, irrational, non-productive game.
Any additions: what’s next?
Going one step further, with a project named Tremors. I a going back to performing myself, which is something I lost in recent years. We are doing a duet, with Murielle. Murielle and me onstage. Similar values, but I would say more radical in the sense that we are going to be straight in the heart of it. I think I have transferred too much of the responsibility on dancers to carry the work, and I want to try and dive into the waters again.
Tremors is another geological word. A tremor can announce an earthquake. I love to look at things from this very earthy, tectonic point of view.
Find out more about Uillinn Dance Season 2025 here - https://westcorkartscentre.com/event/uillinn-dance-season-2025/
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