Barbara Matijevi’s ‘Our Daily Performance’ is inspired by YouTube tutorials!

Ever thought a performance could be made out of YouTube tutorials? Well, Giuseppe Chico and Barbara Matijevi, do just that. And the good news is, Barbara is here in Chennai, for the very first time, with a show titled Our Daily Performance. She will be presenting her set along with a talented crew of five  — Camila Hernandez, Nicolas Maloufi, Thibault Mullot, Marie Nédélec, and Shihya Peng. Taking its inspiration from a diverse range of YouTube tutorials, featuring everyone from newbie musicians to fitness buffs and self-defense pros, the performance taps into hundreds of videos to bring you lively and fresh insights into thriving in today’s world. Through a playful twist and some humour, these tutorials are transformed into a guide for gradually improving our lives.

As a dancer and actress Barbara has worked with a number of choreographers and theatre directors in France, Croatia, Slovenia and Belgium, but this is the first time she is bringing her work to India. Ahead of her performance, we speak to Barbara to know more about her and her presentation.

Please tell us a little about yourself.
I am a theatre artiste, performer; I write and direct shows as well. I am the artistic director of the Premiere Strategeme, which is based in Paris, and which I lead together with my partner Giuseppe, who is also the co-author of all the pieces that we have created so far. The company was founded in 2008, and since then, we have produced theatre performances, dance performances, exhibitions and also radio plays.

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When did you first start dancing/performing?
As a kid, I started taking dance classes before I discovered the piano, and then I began taking piano lessons as well. I was also interested in theatre. I was already writing a little bit — poems and text. So this ‘hopping’ from one discipline to the other was something quite evident in our work, which is very hybrid and it combines all the elements of human expressions — from visual art to singing, music, movement, and text. This is one of the reasons that it is so hard to put our work in a well defined category. It is really inter-disciplinary in that sense. 

What is Our Daily Performance all about? How did this idea of using YouTube videos strike you?
Ever since we started working together, we were interested in exploring how digital culture affects performing arts, and in the larger sense, the way we tell stories and represent ourselves. So, we started by exploring different platforms on the web. One of the first ones was  around Wikipedia. It was really an exploration of storytelling through the surfing of information on Wikipedia. Then we moved to other parts of the web to explore what kind of communities and practices are being created there. In 2011, we came up with a performance called Forecasting, which was where we used YouTube for the first time. We made the second one based on the DIY culture community on YouTube. While we were doing that, we discovered that there were a lot of tutorials on YouTube that deal with the body, and that we found very interesting. I don’t think anybody really buys any books on how to do something; they just go online and find a tutorial on how to do it. So, we’ve come a full circle back to this oral tradition which is very ‘performative’  because there is a certain way to express some ideas, a certain way you use language, your body, how you address people, etc. We saw these videos like a mini theatre piece and we were inspired by how there are different layers to what we were seeing. There were implicit ideologies about the world and how the world is then reflected in these videos.

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How do you prepare this choreography?
I wouldn’t call it choreography because movement is only one part of it. There is a kind of stage writing that is composed of the text, intentions, movement, and placement of the stage.

We had only five weeks with the performers to prepare for the show. But there was a lot of research just to find the videos to make the piece more sharp, to do the transcription of certain texts, to combine the texts and make categories of different kind of themes. We did an extensive audition to find the right performers to see their capacity of improvising and combine movement and text at the same time. 

What does your performance leave the audience with?
This is the first time I am performing in India, and we just wrapped up our performance in Pune before heading to Chennai. I was really touched by how the audience reacted to the performance. From the very first moment, it was evident that they were in tune with all the subtleties that we have woven into the show. It was such a pleasure, from the beginning till the end. There is a lot of humour in the show and you know how humour is very cultural; it differs from one country to the other, but to see that there are some universal ways of understanding human beings despite the differences, was humbling. It was very moving to see such comprehension and appreciation for my work from the other side of the globe. 
Some people said they will never look at YouTube the same way again. It was particularly inspiring to hear how students, artistes, theatre makers, and performers were inspired by what they saw — they thought what we presented was fresh and inspiring for their work in future. That’s the greatest gift I will be taking back from here.  

Entry free. September 5, 6 pm.
At Édouard Michelin Auditorium, Alliance 
Française of Madras.

Email: rupam@newindianexpress.com
Twitter: @rupsjain 

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