Mémoire vive is conceived for bass clarinet and live digital processing, it relies on a deliberately stripped-down setup, requiring from the host venue only a functional sound system.
This technical simplicity is essential: it allows for immediate adaptation to the context and encourages a natural integration with the environment in which the piece unfolds. This is the origin of its title. Mémoire vive draws from the present moment, absorbs what surrounds it, and offers an instantaneous response—as if rendering audible the fleeting memory of the space in which it is performed.
Based on principles of improvisation, the performance never exists in the same way twice. It transforms, shifts, and reconfigures itself according to the site that hosts it.
This mutable character is grounded in a research process focused on the close interdependence between acoustics and electronics: two entities that influence, respond to, and support one another, each seeking its point of anchoring in the other.
This relationship is directly inspired by the fundamental concepts of contact dance. Steve Paxton describes this physical practice as a continuous exchange in which dancers remain in contact, offering each other support and momentum. Their attention is directed toward the physical laws governing their bodies—gravity, inertia, friction.
The goal is not to produce a predetermined form, but to move through the present moment while constantly adapting to a shifting reality. This principle permeates Mémoire vive: acoustics and electronics align not to reach a fixed outcome, but to welcome whatever emerges.
In both dance and Mémoire vive, there is a necessity to care for the present moment—and for what has just passed. It is neither about freezing the material nor about controlling it, but about encountering it. This practice of attention, listening, and coexistence constitutes the living substance of the piece.
Next performance :
11.03.2026 - Rencontres internationales Traverse, Toulouse (FR)
08.06.2025 Gare du Nord, Basel
Sound engineer : Arev Imrev
Mix and mastering : Samuel Gfeller
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