...Or to Be

The stories of non-meeting. Two people trapped in a triangle of emptiness, fear and loneliness. Dance video as a story of life, as an object. Performers in a dialog with space, sound, light and paper.

Both the dance video and the video installation …Or to Be evolves, shapes and naturally transforms one of the main topics of the piece – space in a dialog with characters, light and sound which are understood as an equal partner in creation. Thanks to that finds a spectator himself in an unusual and unexpected spatial contexts and perceptions.
The original duet is the result of two “solos” of the dance piece involving another area of the dance video as an object.
Presents two people trapped in a triangle of emptiness, fear and loneliness. Two characters transformed as the natural culmination of the original piece into a triangle of space-sound-lights. A caricature of near misses, it is an urgent commentary on our inability to abandon routine stereotypes, relax into hysteria and get at least a little bit closer to one another.
Two characters, each unaware of the other, are connected only by the spectator who sees them together. The audience witnesses this non-meeting, imagining what would transpire if the characters caught sight of one another. The production offers an original take on the oppressive emptiness of the present, experienced against a backdrop of ceaseless communication and the endless accumulation of experiences.
The installation consists of two separate videos which are being simultaneously projected either opposite or next to each other. A spectator experiences two separate stories of non-meeting in one space/room.

  • Stéphanie N´Duhirahe
    Director
    ... Or to Be
  • Stéphanie N´Duhirahe
    Writer
    ... Or to Be
  • Jean Gaudin
    Writer
    ... Or to Be
  • Markéta Stránská
    Writer
    ... Or to Be
  • Srdcem zapsaný spolek, z.s.
    Producer
  • Jean Gaudin
    Key Cast
    "J"
  • Markéta Stránská
    Key Cast
    "M"
  • Zuzana Režná
    Light design
  • Matěj Kotouček
    Sound/Music
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    ... Or to Be
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    14 minutes 33 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    December 15, 2021
  • Country of Origin:
    Czech Republic
  • Country of Filming:
    Czech Republic
  • Language:
    No Dialogue
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • CineParis Film Festival
    Paris
    France
    Best Short Experimental - April 2023
Director Biography - Stéphanie N´Duhirahe

Stéphanie Nyota NDuhirahe is the co-founder of Cie des Pieds Perchés. With the circus she started at the age of nine in a small circus school in Switzerland.
She graduated from the University of the Arts in Geneva (ESBA), where she tried to combine the circus and her own
artistic work, thereby creating a work in which the boundaries between the two disciplines are blurred.
Shortly after, she was accepted to the Circus School in Quebec, where she specialized in hanging acrobatics (rope). On the one hand, she devotes herself to visual art (exhibiting, for example, in the Pratt Gallery Manhattan in New York), on the other hand she is an acrobat.
For several years, she has been performing on the international stage as a member of various artistic groups (e.g. Le Cirque du Soleil and Cirk Laputyka) in various places, such as the Roundhouse (London), v National Opera in Prague, at the Pisteurs d'étoile festival (France), at the International Festival
circus in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
She currently collaborates with the English group Collectif and then... and with the Czech group Circus Mlejn. In 2017, she graduated from the prestigious French circus school CNAC in
Châlons-en-Champagne year-round course in circus dramaturgy.

She works as a performer, acrobatic supervision (e.g. in collaboration with Eliška Brtnicka or
with the ensembles Warriot Ideal, Tyhle, Laputyka, Cirkus Tety), but also as a dramaturg of the Fun Fatale international festival in Prague /CZ.

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Director Statement

Both the dance video and the video installation …Or to Be evolves, shapes and naturally transforms one of the main topics of the piece – space in a dialog with characters, light and sound which are understood as an equal partner in creation. Thanks to that finds a spectator himself in an unusual and unexpected spatial contexts and perceptions.
The original duet is the result of two “solos” of the dance piece involving another area of the dance video as an object.
Presents two people trapped in a triangle of emptiness, fear and loneliness. Two characters transformed as the natural culmination of the original piece into a triangle of space-sound-lights. A caricature of near misses, it is an urgent commentary on our inability to abandon routine stereotypes, relax into hysteria and get at least a little bit closer to one another.
Two characters, each unaware of the other, are connected only by the spectator who sees them together. The audience witnesses this non-meeting, imagining what would transpire if the characters caught sight of one another. The production offers an original take on the oppressive emptiness of the present, experienced against a backdrop of ceaseless communication and the endless accumulation of experiences.
The installation consists of two separate videos which are being simultaneously projected either opposite or next to each other. A spectator experiences two separate stories of non-meeting in one space/room.