BEATS x SAT — [Unfolded]

Founded in 2018 by artistic director Hamie Robitaille and composer Yuki Berthiaume, BEATS Collective creates works at the intersection of contemporary dance, digital arts, and sound creation. Across its projects, the collective has developed a language in which the body enters into dialogue with light, sound, and interactive technologies, with a particular interest in the systems that organize, constrain, and transform our behaviours.

This exploration first took shape with the eponymous performance BEATS, presented in 2021 by Codes d’Accès as part of a filmed laboratory performance at OBORO. The project was subsequently presented in the dome of the SAT as part of MUTEK, and later at the Phénomena festival in 2022. In 2023, BEATS 180 was presented at the PHI Centre, furthering the project’s evolution through a frontal, immersive format. Beginning in 2025, the collective expanded its practice to explore greater interactivity and audience participation. A residency at LAB7 of Les 7 Doigts de la main, in collaboration with the SAT’s innovation department, led to the development of an interactive dance floor conceived simultaneously as an instrument, a performance space, and an interface with the audience.

Phantom Limb is a project exploring the enigmatic and poetic relationship between a human being and the black box that is their interior through the use of a medical ultrasound machine. Amos Peled has been developing methods to perform audio-visual manipulations which transform the ultrasound machine into an instrument that illuminates the inside of the body and expands the space of the artistic act into the organs, under the skin.

The work investigates conceptions such as the distance of the human body from the idea of oneself, the hierarchical relationship between the inside and the outside, pain as a poetic message, and the lack of internal symmetry. By revisiting personal memories of time spent in the seeming stillness of healthcare centres, the artist positions these experiences in a mediated imaginary space of internal images and sounds of the body.

Second Self is an audiovisual work born from the collaboration between choreographer and performer Nien Tzu Weng and composer and digital artist Myriam Bleau. Through movement, sound, and video, the performance explores the screen as a tactile interface, prosthesis, mask, and mirror.

Wearing interactive LED screens on their bodies, the artists transform their gestures into sound and images, blurring the boundaries between the body, technology, and identity.

Inspired by Sherry Turkle’s book The Second Self, the performance explores our relationship with machines and our own reflections. Through a series of scenes evoking the myth of Narcissus and Echo, a strange ritual takes shape: the performers become, in turn, reflections of one another, twins, shadows, or machines.

Fractus presents an immersive audiovisual performance driven by a selection of hypnotic techno, percussive grooves, and industrial electronic textures. Building gradually in intensity, the performance explores the interplay between rhythm, movement, and perception, drawing the audience into a space where sonic energy extends into the visual realm.

Created and performed live, the visuals interact with the music to form a living work in constant evolution. Conceived as the climax of the evening, the performance celebrates the collective energy of the dance floor and the sensory experience it creates.