Too often, multidisciplinary performance is experimental but soulless. In stark and bloody contrast, Lenz has a dramatic heart throbbing at its centre. Created by the always fascinating bluemouth inc. Lenz is scary, heightened theatre. And I mean that as a compliment. Rating: NNNN
— Jon Kaplan, NOW, October 2002
In its first incarnation, LENZ premiered at the Mois-Multi 2000 Festival in Montreal.
One year later, an audio/visual installation version, entitled "LENZ - THE THIRD ROOM" was presented at the 2001 Open Ears Festival of Music & Sound (Kitchener).
The site-specific, 3-room version of LENZ premiered at The Gladstone Hotel (Toronto) in May 2001 and was subsequently remounted at the Gladstone Hotel in October 2002, as part of the Free Fall Festival of Experimental Performance.
It was most recently Fall (2005) at Ye Old Carlton Arms Hotel in New York City
LENZ is a poetic "inter" play of dance, theatre, music and film. A tale of mental illness and murder.
Room #9D —
Some people believe the day we’re born and the day we die mark the beginning and the end of our one lifetime. They believe we choose our lives and survive our fabrications.
Three rooms in a downtown hotel.
Three simultaneous performance installations.
Three lives spiraling into terrifying collision.
Room #14B —
The little house that sanity built has begun to show some cracks. Sweet sister Iris has caught the virus and now she can’t go back.
Please come in and close the door behind you.
Room #1D —
I, Pierre Riviere, having slaughtered my mother, my brother and my sister and wishing to make known the motives which led me to this deed have written down the whole of my life...
LENZ bears intimate witness to a search beyond the boundaries of time and space for three souls trapped in an endless circle of repetition.