The Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage - Softcover

Fouquet, Ludovic

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0889227748 ISBN 13: 9780889227743

Publisher: Talonbooks, 2014

Synopsis

For more than three decades, Robert Lepage's dynamic multimedia performance works have been produced on stages worldwide. Celebrated for his bold, visionary aesthetic, Lepage has received several high-profile commissions in recent years, including two Peter Gabriel world tours, Cirque du Soleil's Kà in Las Vegas, a dramatic staging of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and Lorin Maazel's 1984 at London's Royal Opera House.

Despite Lepage's prolificacy and his status as one of the pioneers of new media performance, little critical writing has been published about his work, particularly in English. Ludovic Fouquet's The Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage, translated for the first time into English, thus presents much-needed in-depth analysis of Lepage's strategies and practices.

The book's title references the experimentation so integral to Lepage's creative process and the ways in which Lepage has always been attuned to the synergistic possibilities when art encounters science and technology. Whether as a playwright, actor, film director, or stage director, he is forever in search of new mutations of form and expression, and his unexpected narratives often write themselves out of discoveries he makes when staging a piece—indeed stagecraft often guides story in Lepage's creative realm.

This illustrated volume will be of keen interest for theater practitioners of all kinds, from set designers to directors, from academics to fans.

Ludovic Fouquet is a visual artist, actor, teacher, director, and founder of the company Songes mécaniques (Mechanical Dreams) in Blois, France. Fouquet earned his PhD studying Robert Lepage's work and its relationship with technology.

Rhonda Mullins is a Governor General's Award–winning French-to-English translator, writer, and editor.

About this title

About the Author:

Ludovic Fouquet is a visual artist, actor, teacher, director, and founder of the company songes mécaniques (Mechanical Dreams in Blois, France), as well as for various projects and theatrical events (Mobilis Productions, Lille, France; Palazzo Farnese, Rome). In addition, he has collaborated as an interpreter with the trapeze company Le Tourbillon (created 2005). Independent works include two multimedia projects that combine sounds and images with dance and trapeze acrobatics. Collaborating with Benedict Bradel, Fouquet created L'invention de la « giraffe » (Théâtre National de Chaillot, June 2005), a show comparing cinema and theater. After training as an actor and dancer, Fouquet earned his PhD studying the practice of Robert Lepage and its relationship to technology. Fouquet edited La trilogie des dragons (The Dragons' Trilogy, published in French by L'instant meme, Quebec, 2005), and developed a photographic monograph of this work. In addition to frequent speaking engagements at French universities (Amiens, Brest), Fouquet contributes regularly to numerous theater and contemporary art magazines (Cahiers de Théâtre, JEU, ETC Montréal, theatre-contemporain.net ). He divides his time between life in France and in Quebec.
Rhonda Mullins is a French-to-English translator, writer, and editor. As a literary translator, Rhonda has translated a number of works of non-fiction and was a finalist for the 2007 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation for the book The Decline of the Hollywood Empire by Hervé Fischer. And the Birds Rained Down, her translation of the novel Il Pleuvait des Oiseaux by Jocelyne Saucier, was released by Coach House Books in October 2012. Rhonda holds an M.A. in Media Studies from Concordia University, as well as a B.A. in Communications and a B.Sc. in Political Science from the University of Ottawa, and has studied and taught translation at McGill University.

Review:

“Fouquet’s impressively detailed observations reveal the alchemy taking place in Lepage’s ‘visual laboratory,’ as well as key influences that have driven his innovative, imagistic theatre from its beginnings ... This book both reintroduces Lepage to scholarship and reminds us of the central position Lepage occupies in contemporary theatre practice.”
– James Reynolds

“The Visual Laboratory of Robert Lepage is essential reading for anybody interested in new-media performance and represents a valuable next step in the research of Lepage’s theatricality.”
– Aleksander Saŝa Dundjerovic

“This book will be of great value to those interested in understanding the evolution of Lepage’s creativity, as well as to artists, teachers, and students making their own work with Lepage’s practice as inspiration.”
– Karen Fricker

“Ludovic Fouquet, in addition to being an avid spectator at many of Robert Lepage’s shows in Quebec and Europe, has been a privileged witness to the working sessions of the prolific playwright and attended many hours of rehearsal during research for this book.”
– Louise Vigeant, JEU: revue de théâtre

“In illuminating Lepage’s methods of creation (where the text often appears only at the end of a process of collective improvisation), [Fouquet] explores the wealth of the playwright’s work as well as his occasional failures.”
– Marie Labrecque, author of Une longue, longue marche

About this edition

• Publisher: Talonbooks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0889227748
• ISBN 13: 9780889227743
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416