For the first time, a choreographer has combined immersive virtual reality and dance in a work where the spectators, projected in the form of an avatar into the centre of the device, take part in an unprecedented sensory experience in which they become the lead players. The Real Virtuality technology developed by Artanim offers total immersion through a combination of real and virtual space, thus breaking down the boundaries between the virtual dancers and the real spectators, who move together in the same space-time continuum. Through a surprising play on different scales, Gilles Jobin has created a work that challenges our perception of reality and conquers new, unexplored and unknown territories in contemporary dance.

VR_I was selected to participate at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and won the Innovation Award and the Audience Award for the best performance at the 46th New Montreal Film Festival.

Gilles Jobin worked for ten years as an independent dancer in Switzerland and Spain before becoming the co-director of the Théâtre de l’Usine in Geneva in 1993. In 2012 he was appointed resident choreographer at the CERN in Geneva, where he produced Quantum (2013), a show that has toured around the world. Jobin has created more than twenty works and staged some six hundred performances in forty countries around the world. In 2015, he received the Swiss Grand Award for Dance for his contribution to the development of contemporary dance in Switzerland.

The Artanim Foundation is a research centre founded in Geneva in 2011 by three motion capture experts: Caecilia Charbonnier, Clémentine Lo and Sylvain Chagué. Artanim carries out research projects in the fields of orthopaedics, sports medicine, 3D animation and virtual and augmented reality. In 2016 it was selected to participate on “New Frontiers” programme at the Sundance Film Festival and at the 2016 Lift Festival and Cannes Film Festival.

Choreography Gilles Jobin/ Dance Susana Panadés Díaz, Victoria Chiu, Diya Naidu, Gilles Jobin, Tidiani N’Diaye / VR platform & immersive technology Artanim / Costumes and virtual decorations Jean-Paul Lespagnard / Sound Carla Scaletti / Production manager Camilo De Martino / 3D scans & motion capture Artanim / 3D Artist Tristan Siodlak / 3D Editor Camilo De Martino / Technical artist Rémy Maetz / Assistant choreographer Susana Panadés Díaz / Technical director Hugo Cahn / Communication Pascal Villa Vieille / Administration and accounts Gonzague Bochud
Production Cie Gilles Jobin Genève – Switzerland / Co-production Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain, Lausanne / Supported by Ville de Genève, Canton de Genève, Pro Helvetia – Fondation suisse pour la culture, Loterie Romande, Fondation Meyrinoise du Casino, Fonds mécénat SIG

The Cie Gilles Jobin is supported by the Ville de Genève, the République et Canton de Genève and Pro Helvetia
Gilles Jobin won the 2015 Swiss Grand Award for Dance, awarded by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC)

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