Absence

Absence is a dance creation inspired by the tsunami in Japan (2011). The idea is simple: a woman and a man meet. There is a trauma. They move, they talk.
Absence is a scenic performance made by Eric Joris and writer Peter Verhelst, in collaboration with NTGent and premiered at the Minard Schouwburg in Ghent (BE).

Together with a number of survivors of the tsunami in Japan in 2011, Eric Joris helped looking for their home, only to find a barren plain with just a vague grid of pieces of street and foundations. The GPS however continued to emit data and information as before, as if no disaster had taken place on that very spot. The limited remains of buildings and streets create an apparent sort of absence: something is not there but still perceivable. Like dim projections on a screen or something on the far end of our brain. Without actually physically seeing the original landscape, Eric Joris was overwhelmed by the echo of something he never saw before. A landscape breathing absence. Back home, Joris shared his experiences with writer Peter Verhelst, with whom he shares a strong interest in the Japanese society. Verhelst also got intrigued by this duality of presence-absence/reality-unreality. Their exchanges resulted in the performance Absence.

To visualize the concept of trauma CREW is combining’ Augmented Reality ‘ (AR) and’ 3D Motion Capture ‘ (MoCap) in real-time on stage. Creating a real-world environment with virtual elements, augmented by computer-generated sensory input (like the texture of the objects, the skin of the actors, etc.) and real elements (true physical objects, real actors, etc). Using Virtual Reality this way, enables CREW to edit reality as we know it in real-time.