Cristian Vogel, february 2005
About Angus
I believe that Gilles Jobin’s choreographic method can be understood as organic and self-modulating, as freedom within limits set by simple rules. It was clear from the start that the most effective way of creating music for his pieces would be to apply a similar technical method and build some kind of Music Machine that would be capable of generating organic, interactive music, in realtime with the dancers. The advantages of this approach would be a clear avoidance of any emotional or narrative relationship with the choreography whilst maintaining a fundamental connection with the movement on stage, not just in a conceptual way, but also in a physical way, using realtime interaction. What has emerged seems to have more scope than just a linear soundtrack for a dance piece : the music can escape linear or temporal restrictions if it needs to ; it can become close or distance itself from the movement ; it can be controlled or it can control.
The music machine that was built, of course, had to be given a name, "Angus".
"Angus V1.0" is built into the case of a 1950’s Siemens Tube radio. Its points of physical interaction ; a set of 16 switches, 8 dials, 2 buttons and a record player. From these connections, data can flow into the internal audio system, which is based on a virtual modular synthesiser. The hardware of this synthesiser is a small rack unit with audio and MIDI inputs and outputs which is mounted inside Angus, along with a controller unit that converts the physical movement of the knobs and switches into digital data that can be sent to the synthesiser. The music itself is generated by discrete arrangements of sound producing, sound processing, control and logic virtual objects that are connected to one other. A programmed arrangement of such objects, or modules, is called a patch, and it is the realtime relationships between the objects in the patch that defines the sound being created. All the music we hear in Steak House is being synthesised or is being processed in realtime by pre-composed patches. Interaction possibilties can occur using any of the physical dials and switches on the front panel, and external audio can be fed into a patch using the turntable.
If you would like to know more about how Angus was created, and what it might be doing in the future, please visit Angus website
Irène Filiberti, april 2005
Inner shift - text written for the Théâtre de la Ville, Paris
Gilles Jobin is known for having creative processes that range, to name but a few, from the use of space (be it “all over “ or linear) to geometric lines and star-shaped bodies, displaying a mental self bathed in light and sound in a cryptic yet subtle way. His work has so far been dedicated to the mysteries of life and the evolution of the world. He made his dancers evolve even under the dancing mat in Under Construction(1). In Jobin’s last piece, Two-Thousand-And-Three, the dancers stood erect with interwoven limbs that evoked masses and shapes in space. The piece was commissioned by the Geneva Ballet and turned out to be a breakthrough in a work wholly based on abstraction over the years. Yet the Swiss choreographer has in no way compromised anything as to his working processes or use of material in terms of movement : structures stowed to the floor, bodies laying or creeping, stretched, alone or together on stage. In Two-Thousand-And-Three Gilles Jobin seemed to be painting off the dancer’s bodies, to use them as brushes, in order to depict strange landscapes, be they subterranean or wordly, always pertaining to shapes being altered. Gilles Jobin has noticeably managed the shift from a classic syntax to a more contemporary one with a fair number of 21 dancers from the Geneva Grand Theatre Ballet on stage. And the result turns out to be one of the artist’s most demanding and subtle choreographies. It is a fascinating and mature piece that goes deep and is meaningful in many different ways.
It was indeed a challenge and one would have thought that Jobin was to carry on working his way through organic movement. Nothing such happened. Changes again. In October 2004 Gilles Jobin moved on and out. Besides touring, he left London and settled down in French speaking.
Switzerland where he has been working since. And changes are at the heart of his new piece. Nothing menial though. Jobin is not interested in discoursing. What interests him is meaning, from the Real to the Symbolical. In his new piece you will find nothing but actual, a house with objects, a space within the space that is both in motion, wandering through the stage and also homely, and above all the creed that motion and bodies are most important. To begin with, there is a room on stage. A box that in turn can be a house, shambles, a slum or even wasteland, for here everything changes as the show goes on. This limited squareshaped area laden with furniture and paraphernalia, is set by one side upstage. From that space come diagonally and diffracted visions, picture projections, mobile sceneries that look familiar, in an equilibrium constantly altering. Those changing moods are totally independent from the musical apparatus created by Gilles Jobin’s recent collaborator, Cristian Vogel musician and DJ.
In this piece everything multiplies and doubles ; setting up and deconstructing, giving up and moving on, concepts and everyday life. Gilles Jobin plays with images and frames, volumes, variations with planes and scaling as well as some other feelings and shifting. With his five dancers, that is three male and three female dancers altogether, he distorts the Intimate while questioning life and intimacy ; releasing and losing, breaking and the concept of family, and more generally everything that has to do with migrating. From within to without. Yet here the question steps from dancing and its syntax to reach the visual and cinematographic modes of expression and reflection. For Jobin aims at working with images that are in between abstraction and fantasies. He uses reality then escapes from it. Such is the case with records’ sleeves with faces duplicated on them, sometimes stained with red. The same goes with an odd couple dancing very close to each other, each holding a huge kitchen knife. Or the stage covered with road maps as if it were a huge creased sheet. Or floating dancers with semaphore-like and twisting inwards gestures. Or bodies wrapping around furniture, or heaps of blankets in a deserted house.
Gilles Jobin works with things banal and promiscuity, which he challenges on stage with a raw and realistic set. Then he opposes two different things. The secret, the underlying text of everyday life ripe with intensity and sometimes violence ; and the slowly going down of used products and values. Gilles Jobin’s new creation evolves from a transitory writing process whose discontinuous rhythm shifts between the Intimate and the World. It is in search of a different position, an “inner shift” that lies beyond escaping or running away. It is releasing. Another story that unfolds motion and action, an essay about motion and what motivates it.
