On a cool September evening in Montreal, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to Benoit Landry (co-founder of Nord Nord Est) about their new creation, Une Chambre de Verre(A Glass Room)scheduled to premiere at La TOHU, November 14, 2017, 8 pm. It will be Nord Nord Est’s first creation since Voyage d’hiver,the collaboration between Anna Ward and Benoit Landry that was the impetus for the formation of the company in 2013. This new creation features two incredibly talented people, Valerie Doucet and Julius Bitterling. Together, under the direction of Benoit Landry and artistic direction of Anna Ward, they bring to life a fresh multidisciplinary work centered on a circus body. Heavily inspired by the artistic work of Jerome Bosch, Bill Viola, Walton Ford, and David Lynch, Nord Nord Est has constructed a collage of cinematic dreamlike tableaus that blurs the perception of real and unreal and seeks to challenge its audience’s existential condition and dilemmas.

Nord Nord Est is a Montreal based company founded in 2013 by Anna Ward and Benoit Landry whose work reflects its dedication to multidisciplinary approach in its creations. The company website describes their mission and aesthetic as “a dramaturgy of multiple voices; bodies, words, images and sound, each medium proposing a pathway with its own sensory persuasion in which to connect with the public. [The company] believes that the senses hold a privileged access to the intimacy and emotional landscape of an individual, that it is through the sensory that a work can transcend understanding, leaving a haunting imprint on the beholder on an unconscious level. In a world that is obsessed with control, this is a statement in itself.” Landry explains that they continue in this style with this most recent work. ...