"We talk about shows in two situations: during encounters with the artists, and at the bar. Both cases happen after the representation, and a tacit rule of theater is not to speak during the represenation. (...) But being a spectator is an activity, an activity that implies thinking, imagining, feeling, sensing, remembering, contradicting, sleeping. (...) It seems impossible to both perceive and verbalize the flux of our thoughts while the object of our attention moves and transforms itself. Yet this may be another romantic prejudice to be questioned. During the Running Commentaries, the spectator watches the projection of a show on a large screen, in the dark, like in a movie theater. Behind the audience, two or three "interpreters" watch the projection from individual booths (like translation ones) and comment the show "live". Among commentators is the author and / or the interpreter of the screened show. These voices are dissociated from their body, allowing to desecrate the position of the author and to multiply and distort a performance through a series of lectures or fictions. Spectators are invited to navigate between the channels, creating their own voice-over out of several voices."
(Bojana Cvejić)
Running Commentaries take place every trimester at Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers. While a show (choreography, theatre, performance) is broadcasted on a giant screen, as in a movie theatre, commentators, such as theoricians, artists, critics, speak about what they see on the screen. The spectator, who is equiped with headphones, can chose to listen to any of the commentaries.
---------------
In cooperation with the TIN (Theater Instituut Nederland). Running Commentaries #4 and #5 are organized with the support of Arcadi ("aide à l'action artistique")