audio-visual performance
Völuspá is an unusual audiovisual performance. It is inspired by a dramatic Nordic tale that describes the birth of the world, its violent destruction and out of the chaos a world is born anew. The octophonic electroacoustic composition, combined with the expressive lamentations of voice and cello, surrounds the audience in a soundscape. The video projection on a circular surface on the floor is at the center of the audience. Digital painting mixes with performative ink and drawing. The images, both digital and analog, and the immersive sound composition plunge the audience in a primitive ritual evoking ancient ceremonies in a circle around a fire.
In the Nordic pagan religion, the Poetic Edda, we find Völuspá. She was a shaman, a sacred woman who could enter a shamanic trance, while announcing the images of the cosmological tale she saw in her trance. She would describe how the world was born from the winds of the cosmos and the tree of life, with the waters and winds flowing peacefully, bringing life. Then the world became violent and conflicted between the gods, with rivers turning to ice and the black sun appearing in the sky. The world succumbed violently to a great war. Then a new world was reborn, like a cycle of ever apparent order born of chaos.
We transform the myth of Völuspá into a live digital musical and graphic performance. The atmosphere is intense, dark and expressive, and the performance is semi-narrative. We propose a hybrid performance that echoes the ancestral myth through our contemporary concerns and the potential dystopian fate of our planet. The seeress plays a crucial role in the story, acting as a medium between the human world and divine cosmology, heralding a future redemption. Is such an ending still possible today in our disenchanted world? The performance space is designed so that the audience sits in a circle and can be immersed in the octophonic composition and hypnotic live voice/cello loop. The audience is seated around the area where a visual performance takes place on the floor, using ink, digital effects and the manipulation of natural elements.
Völuspá is a project of live audiovisual performance by the duo Lola and Yukao Meet.
Voice, cello, octophonic composition: Lola Ajima
Performative drawing, digital effects: Yukao Nagemi
Duration: 40 minutes
Voluspa is supported by ADAGP
