Presented as part of the IRCAM’s Manifeste 2025 festival, THE SHADOW is an augmented dance piece created by choreographer Blanca Li, incorporating mixed reality on stage with both headset-equipped audience members and live performers. It’s a way of questioning the relationship between dance and new immersive technologies—an area that leaves the Franco-Spanish artist anything but indifferent.
Cover: L’OMBRE @ IRCAM, Quentin Chevrier
What interests you about using new technologies such as mixed reality headsets—blending augmented and virtual reality—to create an augmented dance piece like THE SHADOW?
Is the future of dance also to be found in immersive technology?
Blanca Li – What interests me is broadening the field of possibilities and exploring the potential that technology can bring to live performance. The future of dance lies in preserving the essential role of the dancer, but also in the use of tools to enrich the performance for the spectator.
What strong choices did you make in terms of scenography and interaction with the dancers and the audience in THE SHADOW?
Is immersive technology a way of bringing dancers and spectators together in a shared performance space?
B. L. – I made it so that the spectator could choose his point of view, get closer to the dancers with his helmet, then take it off to see only the human choreography, before plunging back into an imaginary and virtual world by putting the helmet back on. The idea was to tempt him, to encourage him in this case to return to this imaginary and virtual world. This created a lot of constraints, but creativity thrives on these constraints and the compromises needed to combine the various complex layers of music, choreography and video or virtual 3D images. Immersing both the dancers in a virtual set with animations and immersing the spectator through virtual reality is a combination that provokes strong reactions. In my opinion, the word “immersive” is sometimes wrongly used for content that isn’t really immersive. You have to be able to jump into the water, like into a swimming pool, to know what it means to be immersed.
For this production you worked with the composer Édith Canat de Chizy, who learned electronic composition at IRCAM.
What did she bring to your show in terms of spatialisation and sound immersion?
More broadly, what contribution did IRCAM’s sound technology make to the project, and how does it relate to the mixed reality technology used in the choreography?
B. L. – Music plays a fundamental role in creating a universe of strangeness that bewitches the spectator. IRCAM‘s sound technology enables sound to be broadcast throughout the auditorium via hundreds of loudspeakers, adding to the extraordinary nature of the experience. Spatialization is therefore an integral part of an experience that perfectly matches the content.
How did you go about designing the various scenes that follow one another in the play?
I found a lot of cinematic references, even if they were perhaps a little subjective (I thought of a wide variety of things, such as THE INVISIBLE MAN, SINGING IN THE RAIN, MARY POPPINS, WEST SIDE STORY, FANTASIA (for the letters and numbers with dancing legs), HELLRAISER, SUSPIRIA and Dario Argento for the final red death ceremony) … How did you come up with this thematic breakdown of such particular scenographies?
B. L. – Édith Canat de Chizy came up with the initial layout, and then I created my own layout for the show and the visual part. I imagined each of the nine scenes with a unique artistic concept. Some film references are present because they are part of my inspiration. But I’ve also drawn on other artistic works that are less popular than films. My imagination is filled with thousands of references, and I use them to create gestures and moving images that make me dream. I also like viewers to find their own references, as you did, even if they weren’t consciously invoked by me.
In keeping with this cinematic dimension, having a live percussionist undoubtedly expresses a concern to retain a touch of human interpretation despite all this sound technology, but I found that he also brought an alert dimension to his playing that was very film music… What was your intention in having him?
B. L. – My intention, and that of Édith, was to keep the spectator in contact with the performer. There are moments when only the percussionist is the living element, and that’s the common thread running through the show. He’s also a visual reminder that we’re in a concert hall, and not just any concert hall! [NDR: the IRCAM studio].
What interested you in the story of the Andersen fairy tale that inspires your show, and what makes it suitable for a technologically augmented version like yours?
B. L. – The tale is about the Faustian pact between humans and science and its dangers, a theme that is very much in the news with AI. I thought it was appropriate to bring this 19th century tale back into the present day for what it tells us about our fear of science and technology. I wanted to show that we could have fun with it by putting technology back at the service of art, and get round the impression that science and technology are becoming a threat.
How did you work on the articulation between the real dancers and the dancer-avatars? With motion capture? What were the main technical complexities?
B. L. – This was the most complex part of the project: managing to synchronise the virtual choreography with that of the real performers, who can’t see the virtual as they dance. At first it was impossible to get everything to work together. We were all desperate because we were less than ten days away from the premiere. Then suddenly everything started to work. The dancers were able to rehearse their choreography to within a tenth of a second. These are real war machines, far more sophisticated than any technology!
The piece and its multiple choreographies also make a lot of sense when you – the spectator – take off your headphones. It reveals a different vision of the show, but I would say a complementary one.
Was this complementarity something you wanted in the writing of the piece? Is it important to you that the audience puts on, but also takes off, their headphones as they please during the performance?
B. L. – Yes, as I mentioned, that was one of the fundamental constraints I imposed on myself. I have friends who can’t stand wearing a helmet for very long, and I wanted everyone to be able to see a real show, without the helmet, to underline the fact that the human element is fundamental, and the technology an extra pleasure.
Three years ago you presented the show LE BAL DE PARIS DE BLANCA LI 100% in virtual reality. What is the difference between LE BAL DE PARIS and THE SHADOW?
Has your approach to these new technologies changed in the meantime? Have you come up with any new ideas in terms of immersion?
B. L. – My approach to technology is to appropriate whatever I think will be useful for the show. Five years ago, mixed reality didn’t exist, at least not the kind I used for THE SHADOW. On the other hand, virtual reality was already opening up potentialities that I seized upon, but always with the collective in mind, the experience that you have with several people, and with real dancers.
B. L. – There is a common thread running through the two works: bringing spectators as close as possible to real performers, making them participants and provoking unprecedented emotions. Mixed reality allows more spectators to be accommodated with lighter equipment and with much greater touring potential. On the other hand, virtual reality makes it possible to render more accurately the gestures and movements of each spectator on their avatars. That’s the choice I made for LE BAL DE PARIS, a production that made full use of virtual reality. There are things like the sophistication of the costumes that we can’t yet achieve with the solutions chosen for the mixed reality experience that is THE SHADOW.
Were there any digital artists or shows that influenced you in the writing of this piece, or more generally in your approach and taste for immersive performances?
B. L. – I would say that there is a filiation with the performances of avant-garde theatre groups from the 80s that took place in a physically immersive scenographic device, where the action took place in the middle of the audience, like De la Guarda, or La Fura dels Baus, of which I was a member in my youth. But the big challenge for THE SHADOW, or even for LE BAL DE PARIS, was that when I imagined these shows, there was nothing similar in mixed reality in the field of stage performance. So there was no work by any artist or company that I could draw on to find out what was possible.
For several years you organised the Canal Connect event at the Teatros del Canal in Madrid, curated by Charles Carcopino, currently artistic director of the Grand Palais Immersif in Paris, and credited with the videos in the show.
Can you tell me a little about this project?
Does this mean that your interest in digital art extends far beyond your own work?
B. L. – It’s a project designed to show the general public a whole galaxy of creations by artists who use technology, sometimes very low-tech technology, to create singular and original works. Charles has been my partner for decades in the innovative use of video on stage, and is a curator who travels and loves discovering singular artists. He commissioned Exit at MAC Créteil and now I like to work with him on these “technological” art exhibitions. It’s one of my projects for the Villette, in fact, for next season [editor’s note: Blanca Li has been director of the Grande Halle de la Villette since April 2024].
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