Le Radeau

Try to keep the ball going as long as possible.

Modulate speed in order to make the exchange sustainable.

Stay interested.

If you miss the ball, it’s okay, just keep going.

Speed Glue is a choreographic score for two professional table tennis players. Rather than playing to win points and end the game as quickly as possible, the players work together to keep the ball going for as long as they can. Setting aside the competitive structure of the game, these athletes meet in an improvisatory exchange: an intriguing dance where everyone wins.

“… a crash course on the topic of skill—not just the on players’ own virtuosity, which in its precision, focus and risk of failure matched the daring of classical ballet, but on an audience’s own ability to watch.” — Joseph Henry, Canadian Art

Credits

• Concept, direction Simon Grenier-Poirier, Dorian Nuskind-Oder
• Players Antoine Bernadet, Edward Ly, Mikkaa O’Connor, Jeff Sylvestre-Décary, Otto Tennilla, Pierre-Luc Thériault
• Rehearsal director Pierre-Luc Thériault
• Set, lighting Jean Jauvin
• Residencies fabrik Potsdam (CALQ résidence-studio), Centre Chorégraphique O Vertigo
• Production Le Radeau
• Co-production Festival TransAmériques

Presentations

• 2023, Festival FURIES, Marsoui, QC
• 2023, Maison de la culture Rosemont-La-Petite-Patrie, Montréal, QC
• 2023, Maison de la culture Janine Sutto, Montréal, QC
• 2023, Maison de la culture Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Montréal, QC
• 2023, Centre Culturel Georges Vanier, Montréal, QC
• 2022, Série B, Conservatoire de musique, Montréal, QC
• 2022, Atelier de Paris, France
• 2020, Tokyo Performing Arts Meeting, Yokohama, Japon
• 2019, Festival TransAmeriques, Montréal, QC
• 2019, Musée national de tennis de table de Chine, Shanghaï
• 2018, Experimentica, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, United Kingdom
• 2018, Série B, La chapelle scènes contemporains, Montréal, QC
• 2017, The current sessions, Vol VII: On Resistance, New York, USA
• 2017, Galerie UQO, Trilogie Electoral 1, Gatineau, QC
• 2017, Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides, Trilogie Electoral 2, St-Jérôme, QC

Publications

• 2019, Speed Glue: du guignol formel au Festival TransAmériques, Catherine Lalonde, Le Devoir
• 2017, Neither bigger balls, nor slower glues, Simon Grenier-Poirier et Dorian Nuskind-Oder, Le Merle 5, no.1 (Hiver 2017): 77-82.
• 2017, Set and Match, Joseph Henry, Canadian Art

Financial support

• Conseil des arts de Montréal
• Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
• Canada Council for the Arts