La Gaîté Lyrique | Joue le jeu / Play Along

Come and see La Gaité Lyrique transformed into an immense playground of new ways to play!

Giant games, indie arcades, lectures, concerts...

All summer long at La Gaîté lyrique, Joue le jeu / Play Along showcases new forms of games that are at the heart of the emerging golden age of creative game design. Prepare to be entertained. This exhibition isn't a static retrospective, but rather an active celebration of all types of interactive play: from innovative, cutting edge video games, to mixed digital/physical, social and even board games. Come and explore this rapidly growing cultural phenomenon with an international community of games creators brought together by La Gaîté lyrique: new narratives, game styles and innovative aesthetics that are radically different from familiar industry blockbusters.

A 5000 m2 playground controlled by joysticks or your body, alone or with fellow players.

What to see... what to do...

Joue le jeu / Play Along uses La Gaîté lyrique's hybrid spaces, where architecture goes hand in hand with technology, to create conversations between bodies, the space around them and virtual worlds. The Giant games will bring the Gaîté’s physical space to life and create a dynamic, accessible connection between physical and digital worlds through a set of collaborative, theatrical and interpersonal interactions. On the menu: The Building is, from Hide&Seek (United Kingdom) – a game that winds its way throughout the building and allows visitors to interact with, and influence, its moods! Interference, a strikingly elegant, architectural-scale game from Eric Zimmerman and Nathalie Pozzi (United States); and Opérette, a delightful experience from Daily tous les jours (Canada, QC) that playfully brings the history of la Gaîté lyrique to life.  

From the purely joyful to the radically experimental, from simple games to the most elaborate aesthetic experiences, the show’s re-envisioned Arcades shine a light on contemporary indie and artistic games, and the new ways of playing they encourage. In Meowton, the hot New York collective Babycastles transforms a whole gallery into a sprawling cat-themed game town. The PEEK section features innovative, beautifully crafted and highly anticipated games such as Fez - developed by iconoclast and independent artist Phil Fish and his team, or The Witness, the new game from iconic designer Jon Blow, creator of Braid. Some inventive new games are only five minutes long, others require only your body as a controller: for example, in FLX four players collaborate simply by moving their bodies to negotiate an on-screen obstacle course where they are attached by long elastic bands, or in Ninja Shadow Warrior, one or more players use their bodies to imitate the shape of on-screen objects.

And don’t miss the talks, films and concerts presented during Joue le jeu / Play Along which promise to stimulate discussion, reflection, and present unforgettable stories and spectacles.  

Come and see La Gaité lyrique transformed into an immense playground with something for everyone.

Curators: Lynn Hughes (Canada,QC), Heather Kelley (United States) and Cindy Poremba (Canada, QC).