EMPLO

by Janneke Leenders and RAY LC · video by Bowen Liu

We think we are in control. Then we fall asleep, and dreams arrive that we didn't choose: irrational, strange, often against our wishes. We wake up and ask what they say about us. But can we direct them? Can we intervene in a dream the way we act in daily life?

EMPLO is a performance-exhibition in three stages. A dancer shapes her reality, intervenes in her dreams, and finally watches them from a distance. The space is built like a church: a key light as the altar, two video projections as transepts, a third projection on the venue door. At first, silhouettes move in sync with the dancer. Slowly, she loses her reality to the dream. Like a lucid dreamer she tries to steer it, while generative-AI images of the dream fill the room, but the current carries her away. One form of control remains: watching her own dreams as if from outside herself.

Performance-exhibition with video projections, 2025