Multidisciplinary Canadian theatre company founded in 1994 by Robert Lepage. Along with actors, opera singers, puppeteers, contortionists, acrobats and musicians, Ex Machina accords a privileged place to the puppet, the puppet-like object and the virtual character.
Les Sept Branches de rivière Otta (The Seven Streams of the River Ota, 1994) is a work of multimedia research from which emerge silhouettes, bodies, images and videos. La Face cachée de la lune (The Far Side of the Moon, 2000), with music by Laurie Anderson, was performed in 2000 at the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theatre in New York. Ka (2005), created and directed by Robert Lapage for Cirque du Soleil, is a lavish spectacle that includes puppetry. The Nightingale and Other Short Fables (2009), based on Igor Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol (1915) and Renard (1922), was directed by Robert Lepage working collaboratively with Michael Curry who designed and built puppets inspired by Vietnamese water puppets. The opera was a co-production of Canadian Opera Company, Toronto, Festival d’Art Lyric d’Aix-en-Provence and the Lyon Opera.