DOUBLE VIE

by Anais West

In Development

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Developed as part of the French Theatre at the National Arts Centre and Théâtre de la Seizième's 'Nuits Claires' Project

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In-Progression Presentation at Studio 16, September 21st, 2024

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Double Vie is a bilingual, text-based, interdisciplinary performance. Using soundscape, projection, and prose-like narrative in English and French, the show will explore how fantasy, kink and language can act as sites of rebirth, healing isolation and ancestral wounds. 

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In Double Vie, a nameless trans protagonist, plagued by paranoia and family ghosts, is mailed a cassette tape by a stranger.  Through the explicit and transgressive instructions on the tape, they discover a portal to another self, existing in another timeline, in another culture. Infused with magical realism and analogue nostalgia,  Double Vie probes the darkness in sexuality and cultural inheritance, asking if a new city, language, or erotic extreme can transform us.

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Workshop Creative Team:

Playwright & Co-leader: Anais West
Stage Manager & Co-leader: Alexa Fraser
Dramaturg: Joanna Garfinkel
Performers: Rae Takei & Elio Zarrillo
Projection Designer: Nancy Lee
Sound Designer: Matthew Tomkinson
Technical Director: Chengyan Boon
Surtitlist: Gabrielle Morin

Photography: Jamie Poh
Understudy: Kimberly Ho
'Nuits Claires' Dramaturgs: Danielle Le Saux-Farmer & Gabriel Charlebois Plante
French Language Consultation: Cory Haas