The North American Premiere of This Is Unreal by Liz Santoro & Pierre Godard
Company:
L’Alliance New York
L’Alliance New York announces the North American premiere of This Is Unreal by Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard from October 15-17, 2026 at 7PM at The Chocolate Factory Theater, 38-33 24th Street, New York, NY, 11101. Tickets start at $17.87. For more information and to reserve tickets, visit https://lallianceny.org/event/this-is-unreal/.
Onstage, choreographer Liz Santoro recounts her life: her childhood, ballet school, life in New York, her move to Paris, motherhood, and the works she has created with Pierre Godard. But here, truth and fiction cannot be disentangled: some memories are real, others are generated by artificial intelligence; some movements originate from her body, others are fabricated by an algorithm trained on her dancing.
This Is Unreal constructs a hybrid world in which the authentic and the synthetic continuously contaminate one another. An autobiographical pact that goes awry, becoming an autofiction for the age of deepfakes, a dizzying, disorienting game that asks: where does the body end and the machine begin?
Co-presented with The Chocolate Factory Theater.
Billing Credits
Concept, Direction, Text and Choreography: Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard
Performer: Liz Santoro
Music: Pierre-Yves Macé (with excerpts from Chopin, Mozart, Tchaikovsky…)
Lighting and Space Design: Mélanie Rattier
Costumes: Rezvan Farsijani
Generative AI: Léo Chédin
Interns: Anaïs Vallières, Beatrice Pozzi
Production Credits
Production: Le principe d’incertitude
Partners: MODINA (Creative Europe program), CNDB Bucharest, Atelier de Paris / CDCN, Centre National de la Danse (Paris), La Ménagerie de Verre, La Scène de recherche / Théâtre – Paris-Saclay, Collectif pour la Culture en Essonne, Université Paris-Saclay, University of the Arts London, Interactive Technologies Institute Lisbon
Support: DRAC Île-de-France, Ville de Paris, Région Île-de-France
Since 2011, Franco-American, Bessie-award winning choreographers Liz Santoro and Pierre Godard have been collaborating closely to create generative and algorithmic choreographic performances that aim to challenge the natural patterns of our attention. For Liz Santoro, classical training at the Boston Ballet, a degree in neuroscience at Harvard, and a career as a performer on the New York experimental dance scene have forged an inexhaustible curiosity for what the human body can do. For Pierre Godard, a deliberate path from science to stage directing and choreography, via a doctorate in artificial intelligence, nourishes his work on the future of dance and its relationship with society as a whole. The singularity of their respective backgrounds has led them to develop an original choreographic signature, centered on movement and text, offering spectators playful, hypnotic experiences. Their work has been presented in France, Europe, North America and Asia.
Founded in 2004, The Chocolate Factory Theater supports the creation of new work by dance, theater and interdisciplinary artists from its post-industrial facility in Long Island City, Queens. We encourage risk-taking and innovation within the experimental performing arts community by responding to artists’ needs with space, time, money and administrative support throughout their careers. As an artist-founded, artist-run institution – and one of the few remaining spaces wholly devoted to experimental performance in New York City – we believe that the ideas generated within our walls have the potential to improve the lives of New Yorkers, shape broader cultural movements, and inspire change. chocolatefactorytheater.org
L’Alliance New York is an independent, not-for-profit organization committed to providing its audience and students with engaging French language classes and audacious multi-disciplinary programming that celebrates the diversity of francophone cultures and creativity around the world. A welcoming and inclusive community for all ages and all backgrounds, L’Alliance New York is a place where people can meet, learn, and explore the richness of our heritages and share discoveries. L’Alliance New York strives to amplify voices and build bridges from the entire francophone world to New York and beyond.
Support for Crossing The Line
Air France, Howard Gilman Foundation, Wescustogo Foundation. L'Alliance New York's programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the Support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
