Three invalid dreams – Premiere March 27, 2013 at Le Grand R – La Roche Sur Yon

Imagine three radically different scenographies based on the crazy and disturbing world of the American writer Philip K. Dick (1928 – 1982), with the music of Gérard Hourbette played live by Art Zoyd: This is Art Zoyd’s new project.

Fantasies, disappearances, what is not quite real… and what we believe to be tangible… things or people that vanish… These are all themes that have made Philip K. Dick one of the most famous science-fiction writers of the second half of the 20th century. In such short stories as We can remember it for you wholesale or books like Do androids dream of Electric Sheep? (adapted for the cinema under the name Blade Runner), The Man in the High Castle, The Three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch or Ubik, Philip K. Dick never fails to plunge his heroes into worlds where reality is fleeting, intangible and multiple, a world of pretence and illusion. There is nothing to prove that reality as we experience it is not an illusion. In these uncertain, strange and outlandish worlds, it is hard to separate the true from the false, dream from reality.

These are also the themes and landscapes that have always haunted the music of Gérard Hourbette. The more or less direct references to Dick’s work reveals a common theme underlying many of his projects, such as Simulacres (1976), Cryogenèse – Les portes du futur and Rêve articifiel in Le mariage du Ciel et de l’Enfer for a ballet by Roland Petit (1984), Ubique (2000). Gérard Hourbette once again takes up Dick’s characteristic themes to produce an “immersive” or multi-sensorial performance. Images have been central to his shows for many years now, whether in his compositions for films or when creating original works with video artists.

5 July 2011

Three Invaldid Dreams

Three dreams. Three haunts. Three emergences. Trois rêves. Trois hantises. Trois surgissements. With common thread: music. Fascinated by the world of American writer Philip K. Dick, composer Gérard Hourbette asked three artists, videographers, Christian Chatel, Serge Meyer and Pierrick Sorin, imagine three radically different proposals for its scenic music, from memories of the work of the novelist.

Music, artistic direction : Gérard Hourbette
Scenographies : Pierrick Sorin, Christian Châtel, Serge Meyer

11 March 2013