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A Duet Without You

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This started with three collaborators, Deborah, Simone, Pedro, and myself spending ten days together in a room. In a room much like the one we now find ourselves in tonight. 

This is part of a conversation I try and sustain with three collaborators who are not in the room anymore. These people are not here with us tonight because…

Because I had to send them away.

A Duet Without You is a solo performance trying (and inevitably failing) to be a duet. Re-enacting a pas-de-deux without a partner, Chloé Déchery embarks on a series of intermittent conversations on memory, authorship, collective labour and long-distance relationships with collaborators Simone Kenyon, Deborah Pearson and Pedro Inês. Beyond distance and despite absence, they try to experience what it means to be in the same room together and what it means to be apart.

The performance, with its contemplative tone and poetic atmosphere, playfully incorporates the voices from the absent collaborators within a vivid soundscape while the carefully crafted stage design reveals a rich visual tapestry; which, in turns, evokes a Parisian café, a woman lost at sea, a Flemish painting. Paper waves bristling in the wind, a pair of hands coated in talc, a room plunged in darkness; mundane and delicate material progressively converge and converse to create a sonic and visual poem on stage.

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Credits
A project conceived and performed by Chloé Déchery, in collaboration with Pedro Inês, Simone Kenyon, Deborah Pearson, with dramaturgical support from Michael Pinchbeck and mentoring from Karen Christopher.
Designed by Tom Parkinson (sound and music) and Marty Langthorne (lighting).
Documented by Manuel Vason (press photography), Tom Medwell (production photography), and Chris Eley (video trailer).
Produced by Leo Burtin (Making Room), with support from Laura Dee Milnes (development producer). Supported using public funding by Arts Council England. Development of the work has been generously supported by Shoreditch Town Hall, University of Surrey, Queen Mary University and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

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References Text
Marguerite Duras, audio extract from her short film Les Mains Négatives, 1979 Opening song: The Original Carter Family, Will you miss me when I’m gone? Source material: Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude, 1988, Bruce Nauman Walking in an exaggerated manner around the perimeter of a square, 1967-8, Loïc Touzé, Love, 2003, Johannes Vermeer, Woman in blue reading a letter, 1662-65

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Further information

For further information, including tech requirements and sample press releases, please contact Leo Burtin, Creative Producer on leo@making-room.co.uk or Chloé on chloe@chloedechery.com

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