Corentin JPM LEVENPortofolio

Spring 2015

Live Art / Theater

MOTHER HUNTING(miracle of a Rose)

Director : Bianca Casady (CocoRosie)Date/Location : Mars 2015/National Theater, Oslo (no)Role: Light Designer, Multimedia, PerformerRunning Time: 90 min

«Ain’t nothing but whores, cops, clowns, widows, orphans and maids.An orphan is sold by her mother to become a servant to a mean rich woman with an obsession for plastic surgery. The maids perform nightly surgeries on the vain boss. A revengeful plot against the rich woman leads to the orphan’s escape and ultimately initiates her descent to a criminal life on the streets. In a parallel world a little girl receives magic red shoes and runs away from her deranged father becoming a clown and a prostitute. Eventually realizing her likeness to her father, she embraces her own lunacy. «He may have turned me away from magic, but not away from madness.» The characters sing and dance their way through different realms, time traveling into fading memories. It’s hard to tell from who’s dream this world emerges, who is the dreamer and who is being dreamt.»

DAILY LIFE EVERLASTING

DAILY LIFE EVERLASTINGA Witness Relocation production

Written by Chuck MeeDirected & Choreographed by Dan SaferOriginal Music by Heather ChristianRole: Light Designer, Stage DesignerRunning Time: 70 minutes

The third collaboration between Witness Relocation and acclaimed writer Charles Mee, in which people meet, fall in love, make out with each other, find being alive awkward but funny, and dance quite a lot. Witness Relocation combines dance and theater with the energy of a rock show, ex-ploding contemporary culture into intensely physical, outrageous, poetic, and some-times brutal performances. World Premiere in Norway

YOUR FANTASY, OUR REALITIES

A collaboration with Ann-Mirjam Vaikla(EE), Heidi Dalene (NO), Ida Holthe Lid(NO)Running Time: 40 minutes

«If my life was a musical there will always be someone to catch up when I fall.If my life was a musical I would have an understudy.»

In here, everything is a game. Fantasies, realities. While the entertainement depicts the lines of an idealic life in musical, the real as a bitter taste. In this performance, the performers are protagonists, objects, operators, and voyeurs. One role after the other. Each fantasy is the consequence of hard labor . Musical classics show their reality, and nourrish a de-sire from different perspectives.

Coffee For Fiveby Three Attending

Text integraly written by the theater group Three Attending (Ida Holthe Lid, Heidi Dalene and Corentin JPM Leven)Date/Location: May 2015/Norwegian Theater AcademyRole: Author, Light Designer, Stage Designer, Composer, Interpretor.

Coffee For Five is a performance that seeks to a address the bigger existential ques-tions in life in a coffee table manner. An easy dialogue over a cup of coffee has many a times been the settings for existential crises and seems a natural remedy for hand-ling almost any life changes. Being it falling apart, falling ill, falling in love, falling for someone’s trick, letting the mask fall, taking the plunge or a leap of faith or simply fal-ling flat on your face due to gravity’s cunningly pull. With the performance Coffee for Five we attempt to approach the falling in life in different degrees and perspectives. In this universe the living frames the dead, the alive pushes the dead. The inanimate becomes desire and fantasy.

STATIONARY WAVE

In collaboration with Lærke Grøntved(DK), Anders Firing Aardal(NO), Heidi Dalene(NO)Date/Location: 2014/Norwegian Theater AcademyRole: Concept Developer, Scenographer, Performer.Running Time: 70 minutes

“Stationary Wave” is an interpretation of a Norwegian book untitled «House 2000 (XTC diary, LSD flash) » written by Eddi B. Saxegaard. The book is a diary in which the author has written under use of various narcotics. The book has been investigated and its dramaturgy has driven us to a peculiar rea-ding in terms of various factors such as: energy, light, sound, atmosphere, mood, space, relation and movement.Each entry from the diary represents a certain amount of time and a specific phy-sical articulation in space. The overall performance takes the shape of a graph ( see next page). The performance in a large perspective, offers a dialogue between space, sound, light and bodies in space. The audience is displayed in two rows facing each other; one becomes another’s mirror as well as the extremities of our physical journey.Sound has been developed from early sessions of the group reading the text, playing with it , from there, the sounds have been split into clusters of 30 seconds relating to the sound curve of the graph in order to indulge the sonic background of the diary. The light, relates to the architecture we’re in, offering different ways to perceive a same space either by claustrophobia or empowerment over physical spaces. With various sorts of basic stage light equipment, the space intervenes with the constant monologue Eddi B. Saxegaard offers while decrying his feelings in his turmoil.The physical interpretation follows various directions, also in relation to the diary entries, from clubbing, to suspension in time, sleepiness to epilepsy.

Performance

The Dictionary Of The Insatiable Lotus Eater That Picked My Flower. Change. It’s A Good Deal Though. Rendezvous?

In collaboration with Heidi Dalene(NO), Ida Holthe Lid(NO), Ylva Owren(NO)Duration: 120 minDate/Location: June 2013/Norwegian Theater AcademyRole: Performer, Scenographer

The very performative Dictionary of the Wind, written by Ivetta Gerasimchuk, brought us to a specific subject: relationships. Just as the Chronists and the Anemophiles, relationships are based on endings and beginnings. More precisely we decided to put the focus on the word Anemophile and its etymology.To understand this word it is necessary to remind the 3 main words to express different loves in Greek. Eros (the love by Plato, the reunification of your Self by finding the second half of «you»), Philia (satisfaction in love by what you have, no desire for anything more), Agape (love as vain, love that costs you a lot and for which you don’t expect any pay back. Adoration).Considering these definitions it is interesting to re-think the concept of the Anemophiles which means in Greek “wind lovers” (anemos/philia). What’s interesting is this notion of fatalism in the present facing the future just like Chronists do facing the past. Philia expressing the love to whatever object out of the «Possible Worlds» (Bergson).Comparing relationships, desire to Anemophiles lead us to a performative installation, as we like to call it. 24 boxes in a space. 24 cubes in a 25th big one, which is the Studio Blue. 24 refe-rences to time, relationships, ethics, communities, feelings, concepts with which the audience must interact by penetrating some of these cubic spaces, reading, smelling, touching, speaking and listening.In addition to this space, a «crappy band» is performing; sincerely giving away parts of them-selves to the audience by singing love songs in a not professional but humble and vulnerable way.

L´eau du bain/BadvattnetApril, 2013Opera Show Room/Folkoperan- Stockholm(SE)Role: Concept developper, Costume DesignerDuration: 20mn

L´eau du bain/Badvattnet is an underwater opera performance, challenging the singer as much as the audience by creating one single choreography in a structured and fra-med context.

A mic is set in the water as well as sub-aquatic speakers and sub-aquatic lights. The experience is meant to be from inside the pool. The sound waves underwater being hi-gher are going through the body as weapons, the heavy breath and continious physical action aim to an esthetic, cathatsistic performance in which exhaustion plays a major role.

The singer appears and starts her aria on the edge of the pool, then goes in the pool and continues under water. To breath, she needs pauses which are synchronizedby light and breaks in the Aria itself, as a time suspension.

Aria: Stride la Vampa - Il Trivatore , Verdi.

FREDS VENN: BENDIK RIIS (I)PerformanceDuration: 180 min

Bendik Riis is a norwegian artist from the 20th century. Despite his death, he still is an urban legend, the elder ones, remember him, his work and his funny behaviours.

He was born and lived in Fredrikstad, where this project takes birth.

The first outcome of an intensive research onto his archives and talking to locals in the street and elderly houses, it felt like the name of Bendik Riis was still present while his work forgotten. Here’s the dark cloud, his work got mostly stolen in both psychatric institutions he’s been locked in after an emblematic street eprfor-mance he did.On the 17th of may 1944, national day in Norway, Bendik Riis used his bed sheets to write «FREDS VENN» ( friend of peace) and started parading in the streets of fredrikstad, barely dressed. His appearance became a big event in which children started to parade with him, laughing at him while being a part of a bigger movement, for peace. Bendik Riis got caught by the police and everything went back to order, in this second world war context. This is one of the many stories Fredrikstad citizrns remember, and Bendik Riis was known for being «special», many legends, urbans are still present, little stories to show the peculiar behaviour of the artist.

FREDS VENN: BENDIK RIIS (I) is a work that took place at the «No13 contemporary» gallery in Fredrikstad. Looking like a window shop, a little boutique the space has been used as long durational performance. For four hours, trying to imitate this only archival photo of Bendik Riis, in this space. Digging up the theme of archive and remembrance. The space being on the way to the train station, the audience was of casual workers going home and here they were exposed to their memory as a community, a freakshow, a message of peace. By restaging this symbolic performance in a gallery window space during 2hours and 30 minutes the performance raises up the question of common memory and spatial recognition.

This project encountered many different versions, trying to depict various aspects of the problematic matter Bendik Riis represents in terms of censorship, ownership, memory, ethics and archive.

FREDS VENN - Extended

Date/Location: 2013-2015/Infinite Record Seminar- Kiel(De)Running Time: 25 min

The project Freds Venn: Bendik Riis has become a thematic in my work in terms of archives and problematics around artistic cultural legacy.

Multiple performances has been shown during the Infinite Record - Archive Project Seminar held by the Norwegian Theater Acedemy. The work has been developped and shown in Kiel (DE) and Boston(USA) during seminars.

Une chanson qui nous ressemble

Date/Location: April 2014/SAVYY Contemporary, Berlin

«Here I stand, in between past and future.In this posture in which to rest is a decoy; which in truth would mean to stay in the past so to not venture in the existence.» The No-Present Text

Based on a text written by myself called "The No-present text". This performance, by setting a new semi-transparent/isloted space, explores the idea of presence and its non-sense when translated into existence.

A candle, A smell, burning from the bottom: smoke.

A song, a breath, a voice: Les feuilles mortes.

One Step At A Time

Date/Location: December, 2013/Homlungen Lighthouse - Hvaler(NO) Norwegian Theater Academy Prague Quadrennial

Workshop by Serge von ArxWorkshop in collaboration withHKU Theatre University of the Arts, UtrechtFaculty of the Academy of Performing Arts PragueSchool of Visual Theatre JerusalemThe Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

The Abundant Song

In collaboration with Inga leknaviciute(LT), Heidi Dalene(NO)Date/Location: April 2014/ Folkoperan, Stockholm(SE)Running Time: 20 min

A red curtain, two shiny bright light behind it, as if the windows were reflecting on the floor the light of a bright day. A smell, the smell on woods, highlands, opening a space of freedom, confronting the claustrophobic room to the wider ambitions of the Aria.Eight speakers, a choir of non--professionals singing the aria how they imagine it to be, each voice with its own interpretation. Magnus Sköld, at the organ, starts himself to play the aria, in a great physical expression, always in suspension, his movements are soft and indulgent.Grows a spatial mayhem, a dialogue with the aria itself, from which grows the voice of Karolina Blixt, emmerging from the audience to offer her own interpretation of the aria. Offering her technic to the moment, sharing an instant together with the audience. Eye to eye, soft touch, Karolina Blixt wanders in the room and shares an authentic and very personnal farewell with the audience.

SOFT FRAME

Duration: 12mn

It all starts when Corentin enters the room. He is barefoot and is wearing a white shirt and so-mething that could resemble as the pants of a school orchestra. We can see his earplugs, but we have no idea of what he is listening to. Then he turns to us and the show begins. He starts dan-cing like he is the only one in the room. And he gets it all out. It’s full of energy and is a kind of dance that we all want to do but doesn’t have the courage to do outside the room where we grew up. We get quite curious in the public.And we hear quiet whispering « what’s on his playlist? » He looses himself to the dance and even though we look a bit stiff in the public, we join him in the dance in our mind.While he dances colors starts to burst of him. Not in a metaphorical way but all of a sudden there are colors everywhere. It’s mostly on his shortcut also at the walls and the floor. In the middle of the dance his earplugs falls out, but this doesn’t stop him or slow him down. He just throw them on the floor, he doesn’t need it anymore. The music must be inside of him. All of a sudden, he stops. The sweat is dripping and he tells us that there is no present. There is only a past and a future. The thing in between is a process that creates a bridge directly from the past to the present. He repeatedly tells us « there is no present » until we get it all.We are always told to live in the present. But what does that mean in this context if there are not any present ? They are necessarily contradictions. Maybe we can look at this as we are in a constant process; there is no stop or moment that we can call present. When we try to reflect on a moment it is already in the past and we are now in what at the time was the future heading fro the next. It is a play with the concept of time.

So maybe there is no such thing as a present, but I love how he dances in the process.Text by Annika Hagstrøm

Go For It

Date/Location: October 2012/Norwegian Theater AcademyWorkshop by Andrey BartenevRunning Time: 15 min

Installation on the theme “Beauty Off ”.A giant bed, a bath tub, lamps, food sticking out of thebath tub, an actress in a massive wedding dress, a mermaid,a fishing stick, one burger. Go.

Inspired by Maslow’s Pyramid, the performer runs for the lure it’s fantasy projects.

Decadence & Decay

In collaboration with Øystein Elle(NO), Jill Sigman(USA) and Joro Boro(USA).Date/Location: April 2015/Toy Kraft Theater,New YorkRunning time: 80 minRole: Scenographer, Costume Design, Light Design.

By exploring freakish, destroyed, diseased, and decadent bodies, we comment on his-torical and present manifestations of decadence and decay. By illuminating the beauty in ugliness, madness, devastation, pollution, sickness and affliction, this piece per-forms an inverted warning. Elegantly and extravagantly staging filth and crudeness, we are an indirect political voice, pointing at society’s tendencies, yet seductively en-gaging viewers with our raucous elegance. Musically we mix ornamentation of the baroque period with noise, hard rocking beats, post punk, avant-garde and contem-porary music, drawing upon diverse virtuosities.

Eelmine eluLa vie antérieure

Bianca Casadyand the C.i.A

Credits

Front Cover Corentin JPM Leven

Mother Hunting (7) Corentin JPM Leven (8) Jan Hajdelak Husták (10-12) Bård Halvorsen (13) Jan Hajdelak HustákDaily Life Everlasting (15/16) Jan Hajdelak Husták

Your fantasy, Our realities (18) Ulf Knudsen (19) Serge von ArxCoffee for Five (20-24) Corentin JPM Leven (25) Heidi Dalene

Stationary Wave (26) Bård Halvorsen

The Dictionary Of The (32/33) Jan Hajdelak HustákInsatiable Lotus Eater (34/35) Ylva OwrenThat Picked My Flower. Change. It’s A Good Deal Though. Rendezvous?

L’eau du Bain/Badvattnet (36) Sarah Tehranian

Freds Venn :Bendik Riis (38) Rami Maktabi (39) Archive Bendik Riis

Bendik Riis III (40) Monika Sobczak (41) Corentin JPM Leven

Une chanson qui nous (42/44) Monika Sobczakressemble

One step at a time (46/47) Serge von Arx

The Abundant Song (50/51) Markus Gårder

Soft Frame (52) Monika Sobczak (54) Corentin JPM Leven

Go for It (56) Serge von Arx (57) Monika Sobczak

Decadence and Decay (58-61) Screenshots video

Eelime elu/ (63-65) Vaikla Studio La vie antérieure

Bianca Casady (66) Corentin JPM Levenand the C.i.A (68) Sebastien Graf (69) Rosy Danetta

Back Cover Annika Hagstrøm

Corentin JPM LevenPortofolio - Spring 2015