Mystic-Informatic by Audrée Juteau, Zoey Gauld, Catherine Lavoie-Marcus and Ellen Furey

The show Mystic-Informatic unexpectedly intertwines dance, mycology, and digital technologies. At the heart of its concerns lies a questioning of the meaning of dance in the context of the digital turn, a fascination with the enigmatic world of fungi, and a concern for the environment and the waste produced by the constant renewal of technology.

In a recent work by anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, “The Mushroom at the End of the World,” we learn that the matsutake mushroom only grows in the ruins of capitalism. In these clear-cut forests, landscapes devastated by exploitation where no life was believed possible anymore, this mushroom brings a glimmer of optimism. Mystic-Informatic seizes the matsutake as a metaphor and proposes dance as a resistant force capable of breathing new life into technological waste.

Through dance and bodies, technology is diverted from its primary real functions, and we connect to it in a sensory, bodily, and imaginative way. With a punk, apocalyptic, and feminist spirit, Mystic-Informatic invites us to empower dance to exorcise our ecological despair.