EXTRA LIFE

At the end of a night of partying, a sister and brother find each other again. Twenty years earlier – when they were still children – they had a close bond, which was then torn apart by tragedy. Now that they finally understand the systems that made this trauma possible and act from a place of new sensitivity and analysis, the two adults can imagine both a field of action and a possible future. 

EXTRA LIFE continues Gisèle Vienne’s moving and demanding research into the further deconstruction of perceptive frameworks of narrative and psychological structures. The choreographer develops and unfolds the layers of how we experience ‘this moment’ and devises a form in which the different strata of what makes the present ‘present’ merge: past, present, the anticipated future, the construction of memories and imagination. 

This intense work follows a sophisticated and unique artistic language, composed of the performances of dancers and actors, Caterina Barbieri’s music, Adrien Michel’s sound design and Yves Godin’s lighting. Gisèle Vienne’s reflection on hierarchies of perfection takes the form of a multifaceted collage, created with and performed by Katie Petrowick, Adèle Haenel, and Theo Livesey.

• Gisèle Vienne is a Franco-Austrian artist, choreographer, theatre and film director. From an early age, she was trained in visual arts by Dorothéa Vienne-Pollak, studied dance, and music, and later philosophy, and puppeteering. Over the past twenty years, her work has toured in Europe, Asia, and America, among others the productions and films Showroomdummies #1, #2, #3, #4 (2001 – 2020), I Apologize (2004), Kindertotenlieder (2007), Jerk (2008), This is how you will disappear (2010), LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011), The Ventriloquists Convention (2015) in collaboration with Puppentheater Halle, Crowd (2017) and L’Étang (2021). In 2021, she directed the film Jerk and in 2024 Kerstin Kraus. Vienne has frequently exhibited her photographs and installations in museums, among them the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva and Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris. Her work has led to various publications and the original music of her shows to several albums.