La (H)orde: I Don’t Remember What It Was Not to Know You

Sun. Blue Sky. Thousands of people chatting, a racing track. The heat from the hot engines makes the air vibrate. And in the center of it all the cars – so fast that you can barely catch them with your eye, but loud enough to be heard from event outside the stadium. The 24-hour race in Le Mans is one of the most legendary motorsport competitions all over the world. To pay tribute to this global spectacle the French collective La (H)orde produced and directed the artistic short film “I Don’t Remember What It Was Not to Know You” on behalf of Alpine that portrays the encounter between passion for performance and the automotive world.

The three-person collective La (H)orde is known for its emotional performances, its exploration of dance through different medias and its work for the Ballet National de Marseille as joint directors. For the short movie for Alpine they decided to let the dancers perform like video game avatars while they unveil the A290, the electric hot hatch from Alpine’s Dream garage, that made its debut during the Le Mans 24-hour race. At the same time, the visuals question the dynamic between human movement and engineering, allowing the audience to immerse in a futuristic, surreal atmosphere at the same time.

The ongoing collaboration between Alpine and the collective started in 2022 and shows the automotive brand’s dedication to exploring innovation and engineering in a creative and artistic way. Therefore, Alpine invited selected guests to an exclusive screening at Silencio in Paris during Fashion Week, where they celebrated with La (H)orde the premiere of the movie.

During the screening in Paris, SLEEK had the chance to meet Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, and Arthur Harel – the artists behind the collective and dove into a long, intimate conversation about speed, motion, and the connection between humankind and the engine.

SLEEK: Hi guys, how did it feel to watch the movie here in the cinema today?

Jonathan: Oh great!

Marine: Yes, Amazing.

Arthur: Mindblowing, of course.

S: What was your inspiration for the movie?

M: I think for us it was interesting to look at the world from an alien’s perspective. We’re artists. We work with body movement. So it’s very natural for us to understand this idea of performance and speed. But still, we are not very familiar with this whole new world of technology.

J: Yeah, when we were looking forward to creating this movie we were looking for a story and took that angle.

A: The angle from outsiders.

J: Yes, and how these outsiders would see a movement as a huge celebration where people just gather to celebrate something that is out of a human’s brain.

S: How do technological movement and human movement connect for you?

M: I have always thought that speed is one of the best inventions of humankind. It is the only thing that gives us a grasp on time. Before cars or carriages, we were only pedestrians. To move somewhere had only a single kind of time that was universal back then. But once we started working with horses or once the wheel was invented, we found a new way to make more in less time.

A: Exactly. Speed and motorization like cars or planes, anything engineered for speed in the end is a grasp of time. It is something absolutely mesmerizing and fascinating.

J: It is also kind of what we do. When we create a show in one hour of time, we need to stretch. And sometimes three minutes are going to feel like 20 – sometimes ten minutes like seconds. I love this elasticity of time.

M: This is probably where the link between movement and motor happens.

S: Was your intention with the movie to slow down time or to accelerate time?

A: That is an interesting question.

J: I think we were more focused on encounters and emotion.

M: Yes, there is this very beautiful phrase by Pina Bausch: “I’m not interested in how people move, but what moves them.” I think this has always been our mantra. It’s a phrase we borrow from her all the time.

S: Were there any certain emotions you wanted the audience to feel while watching the movie?

M: This is an even harder question because now we have to consider whether it is arrogant to say there were. So, I don’t know what I want them to feel – it is a very short film. But it’s true that I think it should awaken some sort of curiosity for this encounter and for seeking for grace.

A: You know, when people are watching the cars in the circuit, they barely see them. They are so fast that they just hear the motor. It’s like watching a shooting star. So it also has something very poetic for us. Something that people would come, sit, and stay to witness something that is impossible to grasp. So, I think we also wanted to show something that is hard to catch.

S: Are you into motorsport privately as well?

M: Oh I don’t know how to drive to be honest. Neither does Arthur.

A: Yes (laughs).

J: I’m the only one with a driver’s license.

M: Yeah we are not really users, but we are artists. As an artist, you’re always able to take a look and try to decipher and understand what’s going on in a community. So for us, it’s very easy to witness passion.

A: For example in the film there was one moment when you can see people looking very proud at the car before it starts racing. They are fixing it, they are touching and preparing it. And you can see there’s almost an animalistic kind of feeling.

J: In the end, it is very easy for us to work with passionate people, because what we do is about passion. Not only because it’s our passion.

M: The team of Alpine has been amazing in this one as well. As Jonathan said, we love to work with passionate people.

S: Yeah, your collaboration with Alpine started two years ago – What has changed since then?

M: I think it’s a beautiful dance. First, we were invited to create performances within a presentation at an event. So it was very oriented on stage shows. And this time, we could obviously do a stage show, but also have a reflection on the landscape around the object of the car.

J: I think it’s an evolution where there’s more and more trust from both sides.

S: In the movie, the main performers were moving like avatars in a video game. If you were an avatar, what would your special abilities be?

A: I would choose the ability to change my appearance however I want. Kind of like a chameleon.

J: For me, it would be Invisibility. So, I could go wherever I want, hear whatever I want, and just hide from the world sometimes. Or maybe I would choose teleportation.

M: I would like to know everything. Spiritually, mentally, mathematically, physically. I’ve always been super curious.

S: Are you into video games?

M: The most into it is Jonathan.

J: Yeah, when we were younger I was really into World of Warcraft, Leagues of Legends.

M: I kind of stopped with Tomb Raider. Maybe it’s an age thing. But again, even though we are not gamers, it is part of our DNA.

A: Yes, we are highly interested in gaming and that’s why we liked this notion of avatar. We kind of wanted to explore this feeling of projecting yourself into one character that you can really use as a puppet. And as you asked us before, the possibility of having improved skills like more strength, running faster, or the ability to swing a sword with just a finger moving.

M: We kind of wondered how this behavior, this cognitive experience would influence our bodies in the real world.

J: Movements in for example The Grand Theft Auto or The Sims – basically any game where bodies are involved – are specially designed by this already idea of how people move to certain emotions. For example, when they’re angry they put their hands on their head. It is kind of a new language that was created by engineers but also translated back into the real world.

S: What is it like to work as a collective? Are there any difficulties?

M: Being three persons is kind of a challenging structure for a group.

A: But we do have a way of being critical of one another that really elevated how we work together. If someone comes up with an idea the others question it no matter if they like the idea or not. Only by questioning everything until the end, you can create something bulletproof.

M: Yes, through that we can create something together that not either of us could have thought of their own.

J: And when you’re working together you are also more brave to express yourself. Through this work, as a group, it is easier to explore difficult topics such as violence or sexuality. Everything kind of gets blurry for the outside world because we are always the three of us, and that creates a lot of intimacy.

M: Exactly. I don’t perform with my own name – I perform with La (H)orde. In that sense, La (H)orde is our avatar.

S: Who is the loudest out of the three of you?

M: That depends on the time of the day (laughs).

J: We are more like siblings. Our relationship is incredibly dynamic and intimate. I have known Marine for 20 years now. We met when both of us studied in Strasbourg.

M: Yes. When we moved back to Paris, we met Arthur.

A: Back then all the three of us were young artists that were trying to do stuff. And so we were helping one another and kind of assisting each other.

M: It was kind of like the emotional capital. We didn’t have money. We couldn’t do anything. So, it all started with that we asked for help from one another. If I help you edit your movie, can you help me get my lines? And if I help you get in your lines, can you help me shoot this thin I want to shoot?

A: After a while we were so opinionated about each other’s work, that we were kind of saying we couldn’t sign our projects on our own because the others have participated too much.

J: So in the end, we put our names together and created La (H)orde.

S: We talked a lot about the development of movement and speed in the beginning. What do you think is the future of movement going to look like?

M: I think if we look at it, humanity needs globality. There’s always movement of coming back and forth in situations. We feel that people are moving less because they’re sitting more at their desks, but I think because of that we want to move more again in the future.

A: We can’t predict anything. And that is what’s beautiful about it. We can only sense and believe that human motion has a great future ahead of it.

J: There is an act of expressing things through dance that is not especially productive. It’s pure bliss or emotion or anger or pleasure. It can be so many things. But it is an expression where words are not enough anymore. So, you can always rely on movement. I believe, because of that, it would be good for everyone to be more connected to their bodies.

M: What a cheesy last sentence.

Watch the short film by La (H)orde here.