The Montreal Company Van Grimde Corps Secrets is inviting researchers and artists from all disciplines to contribute to its next creation, Eve 2050. This contribution, in the form of a short essay outlining your vision of the body of the future based on your field of research, will have a direct impact on the work’s creative process and be widely disseminated via the digital platform eve2050.com.
Eve 2050
Conceived and directed by choreographer Isabelle Van Grimde, Eve 2050 is a triptych that combines dance and digital technologies to draw a multi-layered portrait of Eve in 2050. The work has three components: an interactive digital series, a performative installation, and a stage production. All three propose multiple scenarios for imagining how, in the near future, the boundaries of the body and identities could shift in an increasingly hybridized society. Eve 2050 seeks to renew our understanding of what it is to be human: we will see Eve as a child, an adult, an elderly person. We will travel inside her body to discover her organs, cells, genome; we will see her movements influenced by modifications in the neuronal circuits of her brain; she will be cloned, sex-changed, become bionic, cyborgian… This protean project aims to produce a broad vision of the body, enriched by its dual relationship with reality and virtuality.
Your contribution
Researchers from the pure sciences, social sciences and humanities, as well as artists from all disciplines, are invited to submit a short essay (approximately 1,500 words) outlining a vision of the body of the future: what features (scientific, ecological, technological, social or aesthetic, for example) will be imprinted on the human body in the 2050s? How will the body be forced to remodel its form, identity and behaviour to actively participate in a world in which the real-virtual relationship is constantly undermining consciousness? How can your particular expertise and field of research contribute to our conception and understanding of this body from the not-too-distant future?
These speculative essays will make projections, but without entering the realms of the fantastic or science fiction: they must be based on today’s latest research on the body, as much in the historical, social and psychological spheres as the biological and technological. In order to reach a wide audience, they must be written in an accessible manner, logically demonstrating how the 21st century’s diverse changes will influence the body of the future.
Dissemination of essays
The selected essays will help to build the conceptual framework of Eve 2050. They will be published in the digital platform accompanying the project. The digital platform eve2050.com will allow visitors to consult, in interactive fashion, the mosaic of ideas and conceptualizations of the body that will inspire our conception of Eve.
This digital platform will be launched during the 2017-2018 season. It will serve to disseminate the digital series Eve 2050, whose episodes will be gradually released beginning in the spring of 2018 on YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and other similar media, generating sustained interest in the project. These episodes will invariably redirect visitors to the evolving interactive experience offered by eve2050.com. This visibility will accompany the national and international dissemination[1] of the other two components of the project, which will begin at Agora de la danse in Montreal. Their world premieres will take place between September 2018 and May 2019. Several symposiums and outreach activities connected to the triptych will also increase public awareness of the content of eve2050.com.
Finally, with the support of the Canada Council’s New Chapter program,[2] the project will be widely promoted nationwide, allowing it to reach large and diverse audiences.
Submission of essays
A committee will evaluate the texts and select those to be published and integrated into the project.
Committee members:
- Isabelle Van Grimde: choreographer and Artistic Director of Van Grimde Corps Secrets
- Sean Caulfield: visual artist and professor in the Department of Art and Design, University of Alberta
- Dr Cristian Berco: professor in the History Department, Bishop’s University
- Dr Marie-Hélène Boudrias : neuroscientist and assistant professor at the School of Physical & Occupational Therapy, McGill University
Submissions must be sent to info@vangrimdecorpssecrets.com no later than September 1st, 2017 (if you need one, we may offer an extended deadline under request).
We may also be reached at this address for further information on the project.
[1] The international dissemination of Eve 2050 is based on established partnerships forged over the years by Van Grimde Corps Secrets in both Canada (Montreal, Edmonton, Vancouver, Banff) and overseas (France, Belgium, Holland, England, Italy, South Korea, Indonesia).
[2] An exceptional grant program established by the Canada Council for the Arts to mark the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.