EMPLO

EMPLO

by Janneke Leenders and RAY LC

Video by Bowen Liu

We think we are in Control. We go through our lives thinking we determine what we do, act the way we feel. So when we fall sleep, and dreams come our way in moments of spontaneity, often contrary to our wishes, inexplicable and bizare, we ask ourselves to explain: what made we dream these images and what do they mean about us? Sometimes the dreams correspond to where we are, or our bodily reactions, or how we feel, but they also combine elements we have no explanation for. Dare we ask: can we control them? Can we intervene in dream as we do in reality?

Can we be in Control?

EMPLO is an performance-exhibition that narrates stages of reality and dreams as the dance artist sculpts her reality, intervenes in her uncontrollable dreams, and finally observes her own dreams as from afar. An immersive space of a key light, two video projections, and projection on the venue door is reminiscient of a church space of an altar and two transcepts. In this playground, silhouette movements representing physical reality move in synchronity with the dancer, until she slowly loses her reality in her own dreams. The moment of distortion sees the movement artist intervene in her own dreams like a lucid dreamer, as Generative AI-expressed images representing the dream innervate the immersive space. She attempts to direct the currents of the dream, but are swept up in spite of them, leading to a reality beyond her control. Yet she can still observe these dreams as if she is outside herself, as if by looking at her own uncontrollable currents of dream imagery she can be in control.