Introduction
15–16 May 2015 12.00–22.00 FREE #dancingmuseum Map Introduction
BMW TATE LIVE: If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse?
Tate Modern Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May 2015 12.00–22.00
FREE
Starting with a question – If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse? Restaurant – this project proposes a fictional transformation of the art museum 6 via the prism of dance. A major new collaboration between Tate Modern and the Musée de la danse in Rennes, France, directed by Members Room dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz, this temporary 5 occupation, lasting just 48 hours, extends beyond simply inviting the 20 Dancers discipline of dance into the art museum. Instead it considers how the 4 museum can be transformed by dance altogether as one institution 20 Dancers overlaps with another. By entering the public spaces and galleries of 3 Tate Modern, Musée de la danse dramatises questions about how art might be perceived, displayed and shared from a danced and 20 Dancers expo zéro choreographed perspective. Charmatz likens the scenario to trying on 2 a new pair of glasses with lenses that opens up your perception to River Café forms of found choreography happening everywhere. Entrance 1 Shop Shop Turbine Hall Presentations of Charmatz’s work are interwoven with dance À bras-le-corps 0 to manger 0performances that directly involve viewers. Musée de la danse’s Main regular workshop format, Adrénaline – a dance floor that is open Entrance to everyone – is staged as a temporary nightclub. The Turbine Hall oscillates between dance lesson and performance, set-up and take-down, participation and party.
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Upstairs in Tate’s permanent collection, Musée de la danse displays Interview its own collection of gestures with 20 Dancers for the XX Century and Catherine Wood and Boris Charmatz expo zéro, an exhibition performed by key international artists and thinkers who have been invited to present their own vision of what a Musée de la danse might be.
Catherine Wood: When we began to discuss this the fact that without dancers restaging would not Throughout these two days all aspects of the museum – from project, you proposed the 48-hour Musée de la be possible). More than that, each dancer is more danse as a fictional ‘permanent transformation of than one artwork. He or she can freely move from exhibition, to collection, to learning, to institutional orientation – the way art works in this institution’ despite being one piece of his or her repertoire to the next. In are explored anew. By shifting the focus from the conventions of temporary. If this is the case, what is the essential many cases a dancer has choreographed entire shift that is taking place? movements that belong to a work ‘authored’ by a what are for the most part static displays of art within the museum totally different choreographer. And memory, which Boris Charmatz: We don’t take over the direction of enables the restaging of a gesture, permanently towards a performance-driven view, the project initiates a new the bookshops and the bars. We don’t replace the changes it. In our exhibition the dancer is not obliged time-based perspective within Tate Modern. The work of setting director. We don’t caress the artworks, or move them to interpret the same gesture in the same place; to get fresh air, or implore them to not suffocate us the performers are as mobile as the visitors. Their up and taking down the stages and seating for the performances with their aura. In order to understand this space as movements are inscribed in the wider choreography a hybrid entity – the tatemuséemoderndeladanse – that moves the museum. is part of what is on show, making the active construction of the we work as if we are at home: we install some of our dancing museum visible. Given the transformations Tate Modern is collections, some of our exhibition formats, some CW: In the traditional modern art museum, we could of our works of art, and we see how they interact characterise the driving factors as having to do with undergoing in advance of the new building set to open in 2016, with the institution of Tate. I like the idea of how a presenting a story of the evolution of art’s language, musée de la danse doesn’t erase the function of an both chronologically and across geographical the act of looking at the museum itself and asking how art shapes art space. Instead we breathe new life via the spirit locations. Once works of art enter the museum they the museum from within, is of immediate relevance. of a corporeal art form. Musée de la danse tries are fixed as stable entities (materially, for to invent a radical vision of museological thought conservation purposes). They are shown in different through dance. configurations to tell different stories. One of the problems we have encountered when trying to Watch live, anywhere About the artist CW: In Theatre of the Opressed Augusto Boal writes incorporate the history of performance into such Running parallel to this on-site transformation, a Originally trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School, that ‘the theatre is not revolutionary in itself, but it is a context is that it is often not representable or major part of the project takes place online, through Boris Charmatz has been challenging preconceived surely a rehearsal for the revolution’. Is Musée de la fixable unless it is re-performed as a live event. danse a temporary Carnival-esque inversion of order, This, however, runs the risk of collapsing historical the live-streaming of performances, crowd-sourced notions of dance for over 20 years. In 2009, Charmatz became director of the Centre chorégraphique national an idea of the world-turned-upside-down? If so, time into the present. How do the staples of contributions, text and image documentation and de Rennes et de Bretagne in France, which he renamed what does that mean? traditional museum ideology – chronology, display, artist statements. Musée de la danse (a dancing museum). His concept collection – figure into the Musée de la danse? How of a museum as framing device for dance, the most BC: Whatever size this project may take, it is does art work differently in the dancing museum? Join the debate ephemeral of cultural forms, redefines the very notions probably – only – a kind of an experimental invasion. And how does it negotiate this problem of ‘then’ How would you imagine the dancing museum? of museum and collection. For example with 20 Dancers for the XX Century, and ‘now’ with how it tells histories? Join the conversation by tagging your responses instead of exhibiting historical choreographic with #dancingmuseum. Musée de la danse in London works, restaged to enter into dialogue with the Tate BC: I was talking about mobility and memory as Tate Modern and Sadler’s Wells present Musée de la collection, we have invited dancers to dig into their allowing for the restaging of a gesture – of dance. danse in London, a major new focus on the work of own corporality in order to unveil the gestures that These facts fundamentally change the relationship French choreographer and dancer Boris Charmatz. made them. Thus the real museum takes the form of a visitor might establish with a collection. The visitor Following Charmatz’s piece enfant in 2014, Sadler’s their bodies. These dancers are containers of works who comes to see our project in the middle of Wells presents the London premiere of his works of art, exhibition and curatorial spaces. In dance, the Tate collections experiences this dance under Aatt enen tionon (1996) and manger (2014), as well as the however, these elements maintain a precarious specific circumstances: the dancer who learned/ UK premiere of Partita 2 (2014), a work by Anne Teresa status: while dancers possess the knowledge of the produced a gesture in a certain context is now trying De Keersmaeker, performed by De Keersmaeker, pieces, they don’t necessarily possess the rights or to reproduce it in the here and now – to enliven it, Boris Charmatz and the violinist Amandine Beyer. the financial means to reconstruct them (despite to remember it, to transmit it in all its complexity
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and fragility. The artwork is ephemeral, fluid, almost the galleries. By having working artists, dancing Who will it be for? Where will it take place? This is BC: We originally created Musée de la danse as a intangible, which makes capturing it even more old and new gestures, mental and physical, and by where choreography is powerful compared to the way of saying: we are our own heritage. We don’t precious. going through different states of dance (lecturing, pleasure of dance. It brings out the difficulty or ease need to react to a museum’s needs or think about transmitting, improvising, joining in, performing), I of dance, the virtuosity, the liveliness. In this sense how to adapt to the museum’s spaces. We don’t Our collection is multiple, endless, fragile, ephemeral, have the fantasy that we do connect with the actual choreography maybe interests me even more than need to say it’s open from ten to six, we don’t need contextualised. It enters into direct dialogue with history of museums. By changing the usual hierarchy dance after all. to adhere to institutional parameters. By owning our the experience of the bodies that come to see it. between absent artists, art objects, viewers, guards heritage we can invent what it is. In that sense it’s But perhaps it coincidently enters into dialogue and invisible administrative apparatuses we create CW: But I guess the question is not about whether anti-museum because we are constantly rethinking with the artworks that surround it. You think you a more permeable set of statuses between all those it’s a choreographer’s museum. It’s whether you’re and challenging what a space like Tate Modern, or see defined works, presented for eternity, dated who are involved… The status of the artworks choreographing the parameters of the museum to any museum, might be. and exhibited via a dispositif that places them in a themselves is unsteady. They have always been prioritise movement and dancing. In a way you’re context, a historical succession, a thematic frame. But more fragile then they appear. Musée de la danse putting things in motion, and not just dancing bodies CW: It’s interesting, then, because we’ve invited you Musée de la danse might open up the contrary: a is subjective. Since our foundation we have avoided – you are making the objects themselves dance. into the museum in order to kind of dissimulate the painting can also be the result of a lost gesture. You the temptation to be a museum for all dances and all museum: because really the logic of your work is, think you see an installation as the artist conceived eras. We face the void, and we try to construct our BC: For me, choreography is a question. It’s not just like you said, that you don’t need it. So it’s not that it, but everything that made sense when this gesture own history, which is not easy. History definitively a tool for clarity or organisation. The choreographer you’re pleased we’re inviting you into the museum, was originally made has shifted – from the political appears via the particular projects we work with. doesn’t necessarily have a [god-like] kind of vision. you conjure a parallel fiction to take it apart! It context to the aesthetic environment. Each work of I like to think that maybe we are trying to organise seems relevant here that you chose to make the title art is linked to a mental ‘splash’ that might be more CW: We’re talking about the dancing museum something, but beneath it all is a kind of escape a question: to inhabit for 48 hours that instability important than the object itself. in the project, but we’re not really talking about act. Similar to when you are speaking and within as an idea of temporaray ‘permanence’. We talked choreography. What’s the distinction for you in the words you’ve chosen are many hidden layers not about dance in the museum but ‘dance as the CW: I understand that in expo zéro, the question relation to the project? of meaning. There is always more to what you museum’: what does it mean to inhabit the question of what a dancing museum could be is explicitly are expressing than what you think you know. (the ‘if’ of the title)? discussed. In the gallery presentation this is less BC: In 19th-century ballet, the choreographer was You are not in control. I’m not thinking as much explicit. Why is the museum as a space for working important, but the star dancer was more important about parameters. Instead I’m thinking about BC: Doesn’t it sound great, to ‘inhabit a question’? significant to you? than the choreography. Today choreographers are choreographing stuff from the inside. Sometimes Where do you live? ‘In the sentence before the more important than dancers. They earn more I don’t want to know what you will see from the question mark.’ I am not afraid of finding solutions BC: It is important to explain that performance and money, they are more powerful, they have access outside. and answers with Musée de la danse, but since we dance in the museum do not enliven or invoke an to more outlets. For Musée de la danse I felt it was began the project, the research, the theory and economy or introduce the missing aesthetic element. important to work from a dancer’s perspective. CW: Your impulse is to be in the movement as practice laboratory and the void we created by They put forward new questions of museology, This means seeing choreography through, for opposed to looking at it. opening the door of the museum, became a kind of collecting and artistic experience. Around each example, what the dancer remembers more than drug. This drug pushed us to meet, exchange and immutable masterpiece a permanent agitation what choreographer/author may have originally BC: Yeah, because first you had visual artists entering work on ideas with great artists, such as those who of order unfolds. The performance resituates the notated. Here, all of the aspects of dance we don’t the museum, and now you have choreographers are part of this project at Tate, along with many artworks within the workers – the dancers. normally consider – the workshops, the design, who are a new kind of visual artist. When we think others. Archivists, architects, writers, dancers from even the dance floor – become visible. Dance can about ourselves in this traditional way, we are not very diverse backgrounds, choreographers, curators, CW: So it is not a case of ‘importing’ dance in order be thought of as a mental space that opens up, that re-shaping the model. Of course, we are different artists with a small ‘a’ and artists with capital ‘A’ and, to ‘liven up’ the museum, or a frill of formalism for could be experienced through reading, writing or kinds of artists, but we still wield the same kind of most of all, all the ‘visitors’ of Musée de la danse, entertainment, accusations that have been made being watched. It might be about visiting dance or power. A choreographer designs an artwork that is who thought they would be visiting a new kind of about museums inviting dance in. It makes sense, being visited by dance. Choreographers are part of so-called immaterial but actually fairly defined and art space, but got visited by it. And they went back for me, if including ‘dancing’ is considered as part the landscape, but they are no longer the dominant clear. But for Musée de la danse there are dancers in home with the art work: because in many cases, of working with what is already there: the substrate figures. the museum and not choreographers. They are not once you have seen, been a part of, or experienced or support that is the human infrastructure, and the artists’ minds, but rather workers in the museum. a movement idea, it becomes a present in you, also the positions taken by the viewers. How CW: Is this related to what you’ve described as the As an audience member watching them you are something that inhabits you, allows you to be and does dance deal with interaction, reciprocation, difference between choreography and dancing? never sure if they are doing a piece by this or of that think and move differently. And this exceeds the or audience-viewer relations in ways that might choreographer, and this introduces an uncertainty space of the exhibition itself, exceeds the large and inform the evolution of the museum? Aside from the BC: First, dancing is an activity for everybody. But about what you are seeing. very beautiful building of Tate itself. We dissimulate presentation of your works, how do we make this to think about choreography is more complicated. and disseminate the museum. relationship to the working infrastructure visible? Choreography is not only dancing bodies. It’s more CW: You’ve called your work 20 Dancers for the XX like architecture in that there are theories, questions Century – not 20 choreographers that you should BC: I am maybe wrong, but I picture the 19th- and problems that must be considered before a know from the canon. In this sense the museum April 2015 Catherine Wood is Senior Curator, century museum as a working place for artists, new work can be ‘built’. How do you perceive the does not play a crucial role because you’re talking International Art (Performance), Tate Modern copying, taking lessons, working in ateliers inside dancing bodies? What kind of dance will it be? about bodies that take on the history themselves.
#dancingmuseum #dancingmuseum Manifesto Manifesto
Manifesto for A Dancing Museum If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse?
an incorporated museum We are at a time in history where a museum can be alive and inhabited as much as a it can only develop provided that it is built by the bodies moving through it, those of theatre, can include a virtual space, and offer a contact with dance that can be at the same the public, the artists, but also of the museum employees (attendants, technicians, time practical, aesthetic and spectacular… administration, etc) who bring the works to life, becoming actors themselves.
We are at a time in history where a museum in no way excludes precarious movements, a provocative museum nor nomadic, ephemeral, instantaneous ones. it approaches dance and its history through a resolutely contemporary vision. It spends time questioning the ingenuous knowledge everyone has about dancing. It questions the We are at a time in history where a museum can modify both preconceived ideas about accepted conventions that circulate about dance… and therefore elsewhere in society. museums and preconceived ideas about dance. Because we haven’t the slightest intention of creating a dead museum, it will be a living museum of dance. a transgressive museum Its activity does not limit itself to the quest for and the representation of the ‘authentic’ To do so, we must first forget the image of a traditional museum, because our space object. It encourages artists and visitors to make works of their own, it stimulates is firstly a mental one. The strength of a museum of dance consists to a large extent in plagiarism. Being a place of life, a social space for controversy, a place for talking and the fact that it does not yet exist. That it does not yet have a suitable place…, that the interpretation, not only a space for accumulation and representation. spirit of the place emerges before the place…, that everything remains to be done, and that the daily life of this construction site makes room for every audacious idea and every a permeable museum eccentricity. it defends an openness to a broader concept of dance, allowing other movements to influence us and to leave behind a fixed identity. The Museum will not be content with merely ‘programming’ events, but will be a means of breathing life into a place, an audience, an adventure, and will become a place where one a museum of complex temporalities can go. it deals with both the ephemeral and the perennial, the experimental and heritage. Active, reactive, mobile, it is a viral museum which can be grafted onto other places and To not cut the matter short, ten principles: can spread dance where it was not expected.
a micro-museum a cooperative museum but a real one: it fully takes up its museum tasks and upholds a balance between its various it is independent, but works in connection with a network of individuals and partners, functions of conservation, creation, research, exhibition, diffusion, enhancement of public institutions linked to dance (contemporary, classic and traditional, scholarly and popular), awareness, mediation, without neglecting any of them. to museums, to art centres and galleries, to research centres and universities, and in no Such interdependence is what justifies the creation of a museal structure. way sets itself against them.
a museum of artists an immediate museum researchers, collectors, exhibition commissioners take part in the museum’s life, it exists as soon as the first gesture has been performed. but above all it is the artists who invent it by creating works. It is therefore an artistic project initiated by Boris Charmatz, but produced by numerous artists. Boris Charmatz, 2009 an eccentric museum it is not centred exclusively on choreographic work: it does not seek to establish a taxonomy of dance or to offer a settled definition of the subject. Its ideal isn’t to give an exhaustive representation of the different dances performed around the world. It wishes to stimulate the desire for knowledge.
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If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse? Four responses
Despite taking place over a two-day period, a significant aim of this project involves asking the long-term question of how a ‘danced’ or ‘choreographic’ perspective can affect our understanding of the museum. Tate Modern and Musée de la danse invited four artists and thinkers to freely imagine and write a short statement about what a dancing museum could be.
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By Dorothea von Hantelmann modern Western thinking and culture is based – ie, By Pablo Bronstein his face. Marie Camargo in the act of ripping the reflection and judgement. Vision is a distancing sense, cumbersome heels from her 18th-century slippers. One doesn’t need to go very far to discover which, like other concepts relating to separation and The exterior of the museum is redressed in a Barbara Campanini, piquant as Zelaire the Gipsy connections between the museum and choreography. distinction, is fundamental to the rise of modernity: ponderous Edwardian style. The large undivided flower seller, frozen in bronze whilst throwing flowers In his book The Birth of the Museum, the sociologist the separation of nature from culture, of people walls of the Bankside Power Station now horizontally at the audience, her many-layered Gipsy dress a riot. Tony Bennett postulates an intrinsic link between from their existing social structures, of rationality subdivided into grandly proportioned storeys. Each Marie Taglioni, in a moment of inspired brilliance, the museum and specific mind- and body-shaping from other belief systems, and of exhibited objects storey is articulated with a row of niches, wrapping pushing up onto pointe for the first time as La practices. He even speaks of museum objects as from their networks of use and function. One of the their way around the whole exterior, and ascending Sylphide, her slender carved foot accurately pinned ‘props for a social performance’ of the visitors. For most prescient attacks on this fundamental gesture chronologically in Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Gothic, to the floor, a wild look in her eyes. Anna Pavlova, a him, this social performance marks the actual core of separation was articulated in 1943, by the cultural Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassical, Art Nouveau magnificently corpulent 50-year-old, her underarms of the museum ritual. Presented artefacts merely act anthropologist Margaret Mead, whose essay, ‘Art and and finally Art Deco styles. Corresponding to these in solid bronze, undulating to perfection as the dying as a cultural resource, which is utilised as a tool (or Reality: From the Standpoint of Cultural Anthropology’, niches are statuettes of dancers in period costume, in swan. Isadora Duncan, hand momentarily rested on prop) for physical and mental practices that aim to presents the idea of a ritual that addresses the being readily identifiable poses of the period. The Egyptian an antique column fragment, about to step out in induct the visitor into an improving relationship to the as a whole, in all its senses, as a rational but also dancers in Egyptian poses, the Greek dancers in Greek barefoot reverie onto the floor of the Parthenon. A self. In other words, we learn to contemplate objects embodied spiritual or transcendent being. poses and so on up the wall. Atop Gilbert Scott’s large sculpted group of Diaghilev, with marble eye aesthetically by observing others as they observe art chimneystack, a vast androgynous verdigris bronze peering through marble monocle at a drunk and half works. We come to both understand and embody To reflect on the choreographic element of museums figure named ‘The Spirit of Dance’ holding aloft the naked Nijinsky, rolling on the floor, buttocks exposed. the abstract category of progress as we literally means to work on the museum’s corporeality in all its huge face of a clock in the direction of the Thames. A bronze portrait bust of Balanchine stares straight progress through an architecture that translates time social, political and governmental aspects. This implies ahead, expertly representing the creative process. in spatially compartmentalised historical epochs a challenge to the sensorial regime that underlies The Turbine Hall, whose walls are now draped in a Baryshnikov is captured mid-leap as Don Quixote, a – from the collections of the old masters to our the museum and deviations to the canon that it heavy, musty, burgundy velvet, is a forest of life-size marble tree stump thrusting up and holding him aloft contemporaries. produces. The museum’s canon of the 20th century marble statues representing defining moments in by his marble crotch. And Trisha Brown, walks down is one of the object and of art history. It is deeply the history of dance. Realistic figurative sculptures a building, wall and dancer carved entirely out of a Seen in this perspective, the museum is a linked to concepts of modernity and modernisation. depicting in great detail famous dancers in their single block of travertine marble. fundamentally choreographic endeavour. It stages, In the canon of the 21st century, Balanchine would moment of greatest triumph. Salome, nubile and prescribes and programmes the body as well as the be as important as Malevich. This canon would also finely carved, dances for the head of John the Baptist. mind. In Museum Bodies, the scholar Helen Rees Leahy comprise a history of bodily postures and forms of Her thin marble waist enriched by a gold-leafed describes how walking, talking, reading, looking embodiment. bronze belt inset with green jadeite in the Symbolist and being looked at have constituted a repertoire style. Severe and triumphant Electra, in granite, Pablo Bronstein is an artist born in Argentina who lives and works in the UK. of bodily techniques. She also reminds us that the dances herself, flat-footed, to a victorious death over He has had numerous solo exhibitions, sensorial regime on which museums are built is her father’s tomb. King Louis XIV in his celebrated including at the Metropolitan Museum, based on a hierarchy that prioritises seeing and a Dorothea von Hantelmann is documenta- role as the Sun God, balancing in fourth position NY, the ICA, London, the Centre d’Art visual nature, and with these the facilities on which Professor at the University/School of Arts on finely chiseled calf muscles, a sunburst mask on Contemporain, Genève, and the Museum and Design Kassel. of Fine Arts, Houston.
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By Tim Etchells as prompt, trigger and question to the present. It By Yvonne Rainer The fixed seating and schedules of the black box or can throw open the possibility of another relation – comparable theatricalised space, can offer, for those of There’s a world of difference between a Museum of something playful. Something disruptive. Something What can dance offer the museum in the way of value, us so inclined, an end to the distractions of wandering Dance and a Dancing Museum. From the former we social. Something inventive. Something intimate. movement, time, materiality, permanence? museum-goers and the ‘default décor’ of painting and might expect a certain morbid fixing, some kind of Something frank. Something stark. Something harsh. sculpture installation. preservatorial dissection or animated taxidermy in the Something ephemeral. Entering Musée de la danse Value: A new audience, an expansion of art direction of a canon. Keeping things alive, by killing you can shift from sober, not sceptical but certainly history and curatorship What might a ‘dancing museum’ look like? them. From the latter, Dancing Museum, we could reserved, passing in and through so many waves, Movement: Lots of it expect, or hope for, a kind of revolution. encounters and conversations. Taking this route you Time: Ephemerality Multiple spaces of varying sizes; at least one with can exit exhausted but buoyed up, aware of the Materiality: Documentation retractable bleachers and a conventional lighting grid. Musée de la danse factors the already present bodies dancing museum not only as an energetic disruption Permanence: Memory and documentation Some of the spaces are connected so that simultaneous in the space of the museum – calling on them, calling but also as a re-proposition about how the institution events can take place, enabling spectators to to them. It calls to the relations and dynamics already of the museum might be re-thought, remade through What can (or should) the museum offer dance in move from one to the other, perhaps carrying their in the space, amplifying them. It calls to the already dance and (more than that even) a kind of proposal- the way of value, movement, time, materiality, folding chairs or large pillows with them. The size of present bodies of the visitors and the bodies of the in-action about how we might be in the world permanence? these spaces can be altered with walls that can be performers, and it calls to the relations between together differently, how we might rethink the way erected and/or taken down, rolled away or placed them, performers and performers, performers and we think and act together, in relation to each other, Value: A living wage (or more, in accordance in unconventional ways (a hide-and-seek dance visitors, visitors and visitors. The project calls to objects, spaces and their potential. Not to museumify with art world economic norms), prestige, event?). Some of the spaces are tiny, the activities and amplifies the already present relations between dance. But to dance the museum. Not to change validation within only accessible through peepholes. For those objects and persons, between persons and objects, dance. But to dance change. A small revolution. Movement: Lots of it choreographers interested in the ‘“default décor’” spaces and persons, persons and spaces. It sees, calls Time: Ephemerality of the museum’s collection, moveable sprung floor to, and amplifies in different senses, the ways that the Materiality: Documentation, default décor sections should be made available. The laying down museum is already a space of movement and moves, (dancing with the collection), sprung flooring, and taking up of the sections can constitute part of a a daily social choreography, an architecture of dance, dressing rooms, comfortable seating for dance. At all times some sort of seating must be made a field of moves, pauses, interactions, a group exercise spectators available, ranging from folding chairs to sofas and in moving and breathing. Permanence: Archival documentation, divans and stools. The larger pieces of furniture should residencies for choreographers be on wheels so that performers can wheel audience But it’s much more than this – not ‘just’ some pure members into different viewing positions. I envision bodies-in-a-space, but rather, this Dancing Museum There are good reasons that some museums are now a dance in which spectator ‘handlers’ move the sofas is one in which at least a little of the force of history, incorporating theatres into their new expansions. about. The sofas can also be made available to the the canon, the artwork, the depth and breadth of Facing the limitations of existing museum spaces for performers for moments of rest. (Some of us are ageing what dance (and performance and art) have been, can dance, curators and choreographers have begun to ask faster than others.) become active, present and dynamic, entering the Tim Etchells is an artist and a writer basic questions – from the perspectives of spectators, fluid and changing time that we inhabit, based in the UK whose work shifts performers, and institutions – regarding the integration between performance, visual art and rippling out into action, discussion, argument, fiction. He leads the Sheffield-based of dance into museum programmes and exhibitions. conversation, laughter in the room. In doing this it performance group Forced Entertainment Yvonne Rainer is a choreographer, can make vivid the potential and vitality of the past and is Professor of Performance at writer and ex-filmmaker. Lancaster University. She lives in New York City.
#dancingmuseum #dancingmuseum Programme & credits Programme & credits
Performing: Vera Mantero will Performing: Practice makes a Master under the guidance of Miyako Kato. screen has toured to a number of 20 Dancers for the XX Century perform her own work: A Rose (1982) by Sanja Iveković, Croatian He worked as a company member of non-traditional dance venues such Muscles, 1989; Perhaps she could artist, feminist, activist and pioneer the Noism from 2004–06. Yasutake as the Museum of Modern Art, The Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May 2015, 13.00–18.00 dance first and think afterwards, 1991; of video art. Practice makes a Master has been a member of High Line, and Tate Britain. Olympia, 1993; The Dance of Existing, is a performance Sanja did in 1982 The Forsythe Company since 2006. 1995; one mysterious Thing, said in Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Performing: Four Dances based on 20 Dancers for the XX Century presents a living archive of the last 100 years of dance. Moving freely throughout the e.e.cummings, 1996; What can be In 2009 she invited Sonja Pregrad Performing: TUNA phrase American Folk Music (1931), Pierrot in said about Pierre, 2011 to perform the piece again – this 1986 Die Befragung des Robert Scott the Dead City (1935), and Dance of the galleries, 20 dancers appropriate and share a series of acclaimed or forgotten contemporary, modern and postmodern re-staging bringing to mind the 2000 7 to 10 Passages Ages (1935), all choreographed by Ted works staged by some of the world’s most renowned dancers and choreographers. Each performer transmits an Ko Murobushi new images of aggression that 2000 One Flat Thing, reproduced Shawn in the early modernist style. individual history that invokes a wider, collective exploration of dance, touching not only on the discipline’s pioneers, Ko Murobushi started to dance have followed in the wake of the 2010 Whole in the Head in 1968, after meeting Tatsumi September 11 attacks in New York. 1993 Quintett Frank Willens but also figures including Charlie Chaplin and other gestural ideas, such as Krump. Hijikata. In 1972, he joined the Butoh 1996 Duo Frank Willens has lived and worked company Dairakudakan, working Marlène Saldana 2000 Kammer/Kammer in Berlin since leaving California in with Akaji Maro until 1980. In Marlène Saldana is a performer all by William Forsythe 2003. Since coming to Europe he With Germaine Acogny, Pat Catterson, François Chaignaud, Julie Cunningham, Colin Dunne, Antonia Franceschi, Brennan Gerard, 1976 he founded Sebi and started and actress who works with Sophie has realized numerous projects Tobias Jackman aka Big Shush, Samuel Lefeuvre, Vera Mantero, Ko Murobushi, Chrysa Parkinson, Sonia Pregrad, Marlène Saldana, to produce the female company Perez and Xavier Boussiron, Boris Asha Thomas with, among others, Tino Sehgal, Frédéric Seguette, Yasutake Shimaji, Asha Thomas, Julian Weber, Adam Weinert and Frank Willens. Ariadone. He was editor and Charmatz, Théo Mercier and Jerôme Asha Thomas (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) Meg Stuart, Peter Stamer, Laurent publisher of the Butoh newspaper Bel, and has worked among others received her Bachelor of Fine Arts Chétouane, as well as making his Hageshii Kisetsu (La saison violente). In with Yves-Noël Genod, Daniel degree from The Juilliard School own works. He won a Best Performer Germaine Acogny movement from Submerged Cathedral Circle Award (Best Male Dancer), of social commentary and enquiry, Germaine Acogny is a Senegalese (1930) by Charles Weidman, and and an Olivier Award (Outstanding ‘activating’ all of the words that 1978, he performed in Europe for the Jeanneteau, le Moving Theater in New York and was a principal Prize for the solo Bildbeschreibung and French dancer, choreographer about the Exercises on 6 with arms by achievement in dance). come to the artist’s mind during first time (Le Dernier Eden, Paris). He (New York), Krystian Lupa, Jonathan dancer with the Alvin Ailey American by Laurent Chétouane at the and professor. Founder of the Merce Cunningham. the performance. has engaged in collaborations with Capdevielle and for cinema with Dance Theater from 1999–2007. She Favoriten Festival in Dortmund and École des Sables, Toubab Dialaw, Performing: Irish step dance Bartabas, Bernardo Montet, Julio Christophe Honoré, Jeanne Balibar, then relocated to France to work has recently completed a project at Estrada, Boris Charmatz and others. Martin Le Chevallier. Together with as a freelance artist with several Schauspiel Köln. He helped develop Senegal: the International Centre François Chaignaud 1971–00. Colin Dunne will reinterpret Tobias Jackman aka Big Shush for Traditional and Contemporary François Chaignaud graduated from and improvise with steps from his Big Shush was born and raised in In 2013, he produced and directed Jonathan Drillet she created The dance companies: Compagnie Salia and direct This Variation from Tino African Dance, a place of exchange Paris Dance Conservatory. Since childhood to the year 2000. East London. Tobias began dancing
#dancingmuseum #dancingmuseum Performances Performances expo zéro À bras-le-corps Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May, 13.00–18.00 Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May, 13.30 expo zéro is an exhibition without objects: no photographs, no sculptures, no paintings, no installations or Boris Charmatz first choreographed and performed this work with Dimitri Chamblas in 1993. videos. Instead, ten performers, artists and thinkers discuss, enact and perform their ideas of what a museum of dance could be. Rows of seats create a closed space, delimiting the movements of the two dancers and abolishing the distance between them and the audience. Ideas are shared and tested with the audience, through words and actions in Tate Modern’s empty galleries. Through analysis, descriptions, gestures and movements developed between ‘guide-artist’ and audience, a new map of this expanding territory is drawn.
With Claire Bishop, Tim Etchells, Martin Hargreaves, Mette Ingvartsen, Janez Janša, Sung Hwan Kim, Pichet Klunchun, David Riff and Shelley Senter. Choreography: Dimitri Chamblas Production: Musée de la danse, Co-production Villa Gillet, Lyon and Boris Charmatz Centre chorégraphique national de Dancers: Dimitri Chamblas and Rennes et de Bretagne, directed À bras-le-corps premiered 13 Boris Charmatz by Boris Charmatz. Supported January 1993 at La Villa Gillet, Lyon. Lighting: Renaud Lapperousaz by the Ministry of Culture and Lighting technician: Yves Godin Communication, Brittany; the city Duration: 35 minutes Music: Niccolò Paganini, Caprices of Rennes, France; the Regional nos 1, 10 and 16 Council of Brittany; and the General Claire Bishop is a Professor in the Martin Hargreaves is a writer Janez Janša is an author, Shelley Senter is a dance artist Itzhak Perlman, violin Council of Ille-et-Vilaine PhD in Art History programme at and dramaturge and one of his performer and director. He studied who has toured the world EMI Classics CDC 7 471 71 2 the Graduate Center, City University main interests lies in the queer sociology and theatre directing at as a performer, teacher and of New York. She writes on politics of dance as it moves across the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, choreographer as well as a contemporary art and performance, contexts and spaces. He was the and performance theory at the master teacher of the Alexander and is a regular contributor to editor of Dance Theatre Journal for University of Antwerp, Belgium. Technique. She has been critically Artforum. Her books include Radical over a decade and is a lecturer at His work contains a strong critical recognized and awarded for her Museology: or, What’s Contemporary Trinity Laban on dance history and and political dimension and is distinct approach to movement in Museums of Contemporary Art? performance art. focused on the relation between art and deep practice, influencing (2013), Artificial Hells: Participatory and socio-political context. Since artists in multiple disciplines. She Art and the Politics of Spectatorship Sung Hwan Kim approaches his 1999, he has been the director of has collaborated with many gifted (2012), and Installation Art: A Critical own work from all production MASKA, institute for publishing choreographers, such as Yvonne Levée des conflits (extended) History (2005). angles and departs from a and education, based in Ljubljana, Rainer (Trio A) and Trisha Brown, straightforward story or motif, Slovenia. whose body of work she stages Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May, 14.15 Heman Chong is an artist and a incorporating a radical editing internationally. Senter is a member curator. His art practice involves an and collage process that connects Pichet Klunchun bridges traditional of LOWER LEFT performance investigation into the philosophies, apparently unrelated elements Thai Classical Dance language with collective, and is based in New Levée des conflits was first performed in 2010. For this extended version, 24 dancers perform the work reasons and methods of individuals to create a wider version of the contemporary sensibility. Klunchun York City. continuously over several hours. Comprising 25 movements, each gesture is passed on from body to body, and communities imagining the story. He recently finished a book has earned domestic notoriety future. Charged with a conceptual Talk or Sing published by Samuso. for his efforts in contemporising with one movement excluded at all times. Visitors are invited to learn part of the piece and perform it live. drive, the research is then adapted He is currently working on a Khon dance, which he brought into objects, images, installations, theatrical commission by Asian Arts to the stage in works like About Production: Musée de la danse, situations or texts. In 2006, he Theatre, to premiere in Gwangju in Khon, or Pichet Klunchun and Myself Centre chorégraphique national de produced a writing workshop September 2015. Hwan Kim had a developed with Jérôme Bel, or Rennes et de Bretagne, directed with Leif Magne Tangen at Project major solo-presentation of his work Black and White. He has participated by Boris Charmatz. Supported Arts Center in Dublin where they as part of the opening of the Tanks in intercultural performing arts by the Ministry of Culture and co-authored PHILIP, a science at Tate Modern in 2012. programmes in North America, Asia Communication, Brittany; the city Interpretation: Matthieu Barbin, Lighting: Yves Godin Thanks to Marlène Monteiro- The Institut français regularly fiction novel, with Mark Aerial and Europe and was awarded the of Rennes, France; the Regional Eleanor Bauer, Nuno Bizarro, Sound direction: Olivier Renouf Freitas, Dominique Jégou, Katja contributes to the international Waller, Cosmin Costinas, Rosemary Mette Ingvartsen studied John D Rockefeller 3rd Award by Council of Brittany; and the General Matthieu Burner, Ashley Chen, Olga Orchestration software: Luccio Stiz Fleig, Margot Joncheray, Carlos touring of the Musée de la danse. Heather, Francis McKee, David dance and choreography at the the Asian Cultural Council in 2013. Council of Ille-et-Vilaine. Dukhovnaya, Julien Gallée-Ferré, Music: Henry Cowell, Conlon Maria Romero, the students of the Reinfurt and Steve Rushton. performing arts school P.A.R.T.S, Gaspard Guilbert, Peggy Grelat- Nancarrow, Helmut Lachenmann, Inter-University Centre for Dance Co-production Théâtre National Brussels. Her practice includes David Riff is a writer, artist and Past productions of expo zéro have Dupont, Hanna Hedman, Christophe Morton Feldman HZT, Berlin (2010), the residents of de Bretagne-Rennes, Théâtre de la Tim Etchells is an artist and a writer performance, teaching, writing and curator based in Moscow and taken place at Musée de la danse, Ives, Taoufiq Izeddiou, Dominique Mass of excerpts: David Banner, the Pavilion Creative Laboratory of Ville-Paris with Festival d’Automne- based in the UK whose work shifts researching notions of extended Berlin. Riff has written widely on Le Garage, Rennes (2009); LiFE, Saint Jégou, Lénio Kaklea, Jurij Konjar, Médéric Collignon et le Jus de the Palais de Tokyo, and all who Paris, Manifesta 8 (Murcia and between performance, visual art choreography and experimental contemporary art in Russia as an Nazaire (2009); Flying Circus Project, Filipe Lourenço, Maud Le Pladec, Bocse, Miles Davis, Daniel Johnston, took part in the different stages Cartagena, Spain), and ERSTE and fiction. Etchells has worked in performance practices. Her latest art critic, contributing e.g. to Flash Singapore (2009); BAK basis voor Catherine Legrand, Alex Mugler, Electric Masada, Angus McColl, of research. Foundation a wide variety of contexts, notably piece 69 positions (2014), is a guided Art, springerin and Moscow Art actuele kunst with Springdance, Thierry Micouin, Andreas Albert RZA, Terror Squad, Saul Williams, as the leader of the performance tour through an archive of sexual Magazine. He is a member of the Utrecht (2010); Performa, New York Müller, Mani A Mungai, Felix Ott, Zeitkratzer With a special thought for Vincent With the support of Teatro Maria group Forced Entertainment. In performances starting with the 60’s. workgroup Chto delat (What is to (2011); Berliner Festspiele / Foreign Annabelle Pulcini. Stage manager: Fabrice Le Fur Druguet and Odile Duboc. Matos, Lisbon; Chassé Theater, recent years he has exhibited in In 2012 she created The Artificial be done?) and has been involved Affairs with Kunstsaele Berlin (2014). Costumes in collaboration with Breda; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, the context of visual arts. He is Nature Project which concludes a in other artistic collaborations such Laure Fonvieille Production: Musée de la danse, Brussels currently Professor of Performance series dealing with representations as the Learning Film Group and Dresser: Stefani Gicquiaud Centre chorégraphique national de at Lancaster University. of nature and the choreography the Karl Marx School of the English Rennes et de Bretagne, directed This project is supported by the of non-humans. She is currently Language. He is a professor at by Boris Charmatz. Supported Institut français, in the framework doing a practice-based doctorate the Rodchenko Moscow School of by the Ministry of Culture and of the convention with the City in choreography at the University Photography and Multimedia. Communication, Brittany; the city of Rennes. for Dance and Circus in Stockholm, of Rennes, France; the Regional Sweden. Council of Brittany; and the General Council of Ille-et-Vilaine.
#dancingmuseum #dancingmuseum Performances Performances
Adrénaline manger (dispersed) Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May, 17.15 and 18.45 Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May, 20.15
Adrénaline: a dance floor for everyone manger challenges the role of the mouth and eating in choreography and dance. For this performance in the Turbine
With: Oneman, Rinse FM; Nathan G Wilkins; and Jonjo Jury Hall, Charmatz presents a dispersed version to address the scale of the site while still offering an intimate experience With thanks to Stuart and Sarah at Rinse FM, and to Seb Patane. of the work.
How can the body be set into motion, not with the eyes or limbs, but with the mouth – a crossroads where food, voices, breath, words and saliva intermix? The mouth is a locus of circulation where the inside and the outside, the self and the other meet, taste each other, engage each other, interchange and ingest each other.
Using the mouth as the vehicle for his choreography, Charmatz marks out a general field of orality: paper that is chewed and swallowed is physical matter that becomes a proliferating substance. It disintegrates, it sings, it is Roman Photo savoured, it binds and it spreads until it pervades the whole space. Out of this continuous movement of ingestion Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May, 18.15 emerge masticated melodies, paintings of flesh, sculptures of voice, food and skin. Together they sketch a collective, sensual horizon. At the boundary between a mobile installation and an indeterminate sound object, manger is a ‘swallowed reality’, an ingurgitated utopia – a slow digestion of the world. Three years after his performance of Flip Book at Tate Modern in the Tanks, Charmatz presents a new version with London-based amateurs. Drawing on Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years (Aperture, 1997) by dance archivist David Vaughan, UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells, 19 and 20 May 2015. which charts in pictures Cunningham’s choreography over 50 years, Roman Photo invites a number of dancers, including former members of the company and amateur practitioners, to learn and perform Vaughan’s images as sped-up versions of Cunningham’s language.
‘In Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years, all of Cunningham is included: pictures from every piece, and Merce Choreography: Boris Charmatz Sound material: Ticket Man, Production Musée de la danse, Created at the Ruhrtriennale isportrayed from the age of five… When I read this book, it came to my mind that the collection of the Interpreted by: Or Avishay, The Kills; Hey Light, Animal Centre chorégraphique national de International Festival of the Arts pictures was not only about the projects that he created, but also that it formed a choreography in itself. Matthieu Barbin, Nuno Bizarro, Collective; King Kong, Daniel Rennes et de Bretagne, directed 2014. Ashley Chen, Olga Dukhovnaya, Alix Johnston; Leisure Force, Aesop by Boris Charmatz. Supported Dance happens in between the postures, between two positions, and I guess we could invent a piece Eynaudi, Julien Gallée-Ferré, Peggy Rock; Je t’obéis, Sexy Sushi; La by the Ministry of Culture and Thanks to Imane Alguimaret, from this score of pictures, performed from beginning to end. On the one hand it would be a purely Grelat-Dupont, Christophe Ives, Folia, Arcangelo Corelli; Symphony Communication, Brittany; the city Marguerite Chassé, Noé Couderc, Maud Le Pladec, Filipe Lourenço, no 7, Ludwig van Beethoven; Qui of Rennes, France; the Regional Lune Guidoni, Hypolite Tanguy, the ‘fake Cunningham’ piece. On the other hand, I think if we succeed, it could become a real one – a real Mark Lorimer, habitat, Josquin des Prez; Three Council of Brittany; and the General students from P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels) Cunningham piece, a meta-Cunningham event with a glimpse of his entire life and work. Mani A Mungai, Marlène Saldana Voices, Morton Feldman; Lux Council of Ille-et-Vilaine. The Institut and from the Master-Studiengang Lighting: Yves Godin Alternae, György Ligeti français regularly supports the Performance Studies (University Sound: Olivier Renouf Directed by Boris Charmatz international touring of Musée de of Hamburg), Alexandra Vincens, ‘I consider this experience as an integral part of our research, of our specific interest in archives, Arrangements and vocal training: la danse. Jennifer Walshe. Dalila Khatir Text: ‘Le bonhomme de merde’, history and scores: the entire history of a life’s work becomes book, which is in turn transformed into Choreographic assistant: L’Enregistré, Christophe Tarkos (POL Coproduced by Ruhrtriennale- Duration: 60 minutes a performance elaborated by a handful of dancers.’ Thierry Micouin Editions, 2014) International Festival of the Arts; General stage manager: Théâtre National de Bretagne- – Boris Charmatz Mathieu Morel Rennes; Théâtre de la Ville and Dresser: Marion Regnier Festival d’Automne Paris; Steirischer Production: Sandra Neuveut, Herbst, Graz; Holland Festival, Martina Hochmuth, Amsterdam; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Amélie-Anne Chapelain Brussels; Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main.
Conception: Boris Charmatz Interpretation: Sara Ayres, Jamie Lighting: Yves Godin Production: Musée de la danse, Adaptation: Olivia Grandville Atherton, Nigel Campbell, Neige Sound: Olivier Renouf Centre chorégraphique national de Tate Modern coordination Chentoufi, Caroline Evans, Pedro Dresser: Marion Regnier Rennes et de Bretagne, directed of auditions and rehearsals: Faccio, Konstantios Foskolos, Guy by Boris Charmatz. Supported Stephanie Busson Grant, Stefan Jovanovic, Hannah Duration 30 minutes by the Ministry of Culture and Kemp-Welch, Fabio Machado, Communication, Brittany; the city Valerie McNulty, Marianne of Rennes, France; the Regional Moore, Fiontan Moran, Maryanne Council of Brittany; and the General Ogbogbo, Gur Piepskovitz, Limore Council of Ille-et-Vilaine. The Institut Racin, Jocelyne-Jane Taylor, français regularly contributes to the Blanca Ulloa, Chiara Vascotto, Lara international touring of the Musée Voggensperger, Simon Wallace, de la danse. Josh Zola Thanks to LiFE, St Nazaire; HZT, Berlin; Centre de Développement Chorégraphique, Toulouse.
#dancingmuseum #dancingmuseum Running order, Friday 15 and Saturday 16 May
Turbine Hall, Level 0 12.00 Public warm-up with Boris Charmatz (60 min)* 13.30 À bras-le-corps (35 min) 14.15 Levée des conflits – solos (30 min) 14.45 Levée des conflits – visitor version (50 min)* 15.45 Levée des conflits (90 min) 17.15 Adrénaline: a dance floor for everyone (60 min)* 18.15 Roman Photo with London-based volunteers* 18.45 Adrénaline: a dance floor for everyone (90 min)* 20.15 manger (dispersed, 60min)
Exhibition Galleries, Level 2 13.00 expo zéro (5 hours)
Collection Galleries, Levels 2, 3 and 4 13.00 20 Dancers for the XX Century (5 hours)
Please note that all timings are approximate
* All welcome to join in
If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse? is a proposition initiated by With thanks to: Kirstie Beaven, Katie Booth, Stephanie Busson, Vanessa Desclaux, Catherine Wood, Senior Curator, International Art (Performance), Tate Modern Jon-Ross Le Haye, Emily Magnuson, Sandra McLean, Mark Miller, Jonah and Boris Charmatz Director, Musée de la danse, Centre chorégraphique Westman and all our colleagues in different departments at Tate Modern who national de Rennes et de Bretagne and is a collaboration between have put energy into this project. Boris Charmatz, Catherine Wood, Capucine Perrot, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern, Martina Hochmuth, Director of Productions, Musée de la danse Graphic design by Tate Design Studio. and Musée de la danse team. BMW Tate Live is a major partnership between Tate and BMW which focuses It is produced by Judith Bowdler, Production Co-ordinator, Tate Modern, on performance and interdisciplinary art in the gallery and online and is curated with Steve Wald, freelance production manager, assisted by Roanne Hathaway, by Catherine Wood and Capucine Perrot. Administrator, Tate Modern, and Jessica Ziskind, Curatorial Intern. Part of: Musée de la danse in London presented by Tate and Sadler’s Wells
Image: Levée des conflits2010, With the generous support of Catherine Petitgas choreography Boris Charmatz Photo: © Hugo Glendinning and Institut français.