What was the original inspiration for this show?

Shortly before the pandemic, I became a caregiver for a couple of friends who were in need of support, along with a small group of people that I respect. When one of them died, I found myself dealing with their objects and artworks as the trustee of their estate. I had to dispose of many magnificent things they had accumulated over the years. I documented this process, which took almost three months. The same year, two other women who I was close to became seriously ill and eventually died. In their own way, each of these people lived their lives boldly and differently. They were all dynamic and vibrant.

These experiences made me think about our society’s relationship to age and aging. It seems to me that we don’t yet understand that, fundamentally, we will all grow old, that we’re all at once old and young. Of course, time takes a lot from us, but we still have the same light inside us. It doesn’t dim or go out, even when we grow old. In this show, I was inspired by women of all ages who, by choosing to live their lives the way they want to, make their existence an act of resistance, a way of breaking free from the mundane. At least, that’s how I see it.

Dreams are a leitmotif in your work. What is it that fascinates you about this parallel state of mind?

The only one of my shows that tackles dreaming directly is Jimmy, créature de rêve. In the others, I would say that my interest in the unseen world of dreams is philosophical or spiritual. I always allow myself to be deeply affected by the impressions and feelings that are stirred up inside when I experience an event that I perceive as a meaningful moment.

One of the starting points for The Ether was experiencing an altered state of consciousness. Some years ago, while I was on my way to visit a friend in palliative care, I fell off my bike and injured my wrist. When the paramedics arrived, they took me to the same hospital I was going to in the first place. While they were resetting my bones, they gave me some powerful drugs and I had a kind of trip. I found myself in an amazing hallucinatory space. It felt like a spiritual experience, because for me, the parallel world where I spent the day represented, on some level, the place where my dying friend was, a few floors above me. In the evening, after gradually emerging from this other state, I went to see him and told him what I had experienced.

Sound always plays a central role in your theatrical works. How did you approach it in this case?

When I started experimenting with sound processors early in my career as a director, it was a turning point for me. This technology opened up new possibilities that really inspired me: all of a sudden, I was able to become someone other than myself on stage, without changing my costume or using other typical theatrical devices. In artistic terms, when you can perform with a voice that doesn’t match your body, it opens up all kinds of possibilities. With The Ether, I wanted to pursue this sonic experimentation even further.

Along with composer, musician, and sound designer Alexander McSween, I wanted to dive deeper into the techniques and instincts that have guided our collaborations for over 20 years. In addition to transforming my voice to create characters, we wanted to create music based on vocals. Thanks to a unique system that combines various cutting-edge software programs, including one powered by AI, with vintage analogue processing tools, we’ve been able to take the use of sound to the next level. This has also opened new doors in terms of performance: sounds pass through my body and I use their new possibilities to expand my acting technique and body work.

Interview by Sara Fauteux

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