Kris Verdonck & Alix Eynaudi EXIT

EXIT is the title of a performance and research project by Kris Verdonck and dancer and choreographer Alix Eynaudi, in collaboration with Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek). It starts with a question: in a traditional theatre set-up, using all the media at the theatre’s disposal, what influence can we have on the sensory perceptions of an audience? An audience comes to the theatre to undergo or experience something. What stimuli do our brains absorb in the course of everyday life, and how do they differ from those received during a performance? The audience enters the theatre in a state of openness and receptiveness. They sit, immobilised, in seats in the darkness of a heated theatre. Physically, they are forced to remain passive, and mentally, they are in an altered state of consciousness, a state of attentiveness different from that of every day (before and after the performance). These conditions can be manipulated, for example by making the darkness even more complete, by raising the temperature in the theatre, increasing the comfort of the seats, and so on. To what extent is an artist capable of manipulating the spectator’s consciousness (and subconscious) using theatrical means? Discover it in this extraordinary sensory piece!