Atelier du 26 septembre – 9 October 2012 // Godown arts center // Nairobi // Mentors Opiyo Okach, dancer & choregraphe, Sophiatou Kosoko, danceuse & choregraphe, et Yan Leguay, artiste sonore.

Chrysalide est un programme de formation de la Garaa Dance Fondation, avec la Cie Salia ni Seydou  [Ouagadougou] et l’Ecole des Sables [Toubab Dialaw, Sénégal]. La résidence à Nairobi est la seconde phase d’un processus de formation pour 20 jeunes danseurs et chorégraphes du continent africain. Je publie ici un journal de travail de cette résidence.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Chrysalide is a training program by Garaa Dance Foundation, with Salia ni Seydou dance compagny (Ouagadougou) and L’Ecole des sables Toubab Dialaw (Senegal). The Nairobi time is the second phase of a process of training for 20 young dancers and choreographers from the african continent. I publish here, a Journal de travail around my interventions in this process.

1th October

I arrived on the 26th of September. Until now, it was mostly a process of observation. I needed to see where the dancers and choreographers are, in order my interventions to be appropriate. I followed S.K and intervened only when thinking it was interesting or important to comment or address something.

My position is always complementary with the one of a choreographer. I’m scenographer (French term for space/stage design), which is another practice, another point of view. I’m thinking from outside, from the position of the audience. I observe and read what I see and feel, in link with how my mind, my body engage with what happens on stage. A position from a different perspective in the work with directors, choreographers but also in such a workshop.

I take notes (here, images of my notebook)

These few days where I mainly observe, are also the time to decide on what I’m going to focus in my interventions in link with where the dancers are in terms of practice, thinking of the dance and choreography, in link with the way they want to address and the content of their projects:

I define a few points to work around.

> It is about strategy (or tactic) vs narrative. The dancers are constantly in a process of telling an story through dance, with a background, basically mimetic, emotional… At this point and time their projects are not projects yet, they are ideas in the air, the dancers are not working with dance (in the meaning of a performance), but with an idea of dance, which is basically modern and narrative. They create movements without really knowing their necessity.

> The conventional stage is not a starting point. It’s about bodies in space and the relation between these bodies, on the stage, but most important here to work around, about relation with the audience. And this process of thinking through bodies (and not through a frame for instance) can be staged everywhere, including on a conventional stage.

> All this is about the position of the audience. The way to address, to install the audience in the space is a way to stage politically (in a large meaning) a dispositif, an intention.

> Contexts (theatrical or becoming theatrical). It is not only about the stories you imagine, but the way you take into consideration the space where you are, and the way you will play with it. How to configure your intentions in a specific context, reconfigure them in another one, but the intentions are staying the same.

Every morning we begin with a one hour training. Then, a serie of experimentations: today is around how the dancers can perform in front of others, without telling stories, without being narrative through the dance. The audience claps with tongue when they see there is a narrative coming through dance. The audience has to make a difference between a narrative coming from their imaginary and a narrative coming directly from the dance (an story the dancer want to address). This is a difficult exercise, as the dancers have to perform 3mn and the audience claps every time (right or wrong), they feel there is narration appearing (but sometimes they are confusing the two sides of the narration). We are sitting on the dance floor, half a circle. One after the other the dancers enter in the circle. They start to dance, the audience clap… They get lost. We see their difficulty to just be there, without doing nothing, without having tics of gestures. And we see them in research, we see when they get into narration, when they don’t realize they are, when suddenly for a second, or longer, they give up and immediately a state of presence is appearing. When they want to do something and go back to narration. They are in research. The audience is captivated, they clap a lot, they are hard through clapping with tongue. They are hard with the performers. But everybody jumps into it with pleasure, they want to experiment. Sometimes the audience claps a bit, sometimes there is a consensus on the fact what we see is narrative and everybody claps: even this rule is subjective, everybody doesn’t see narration at the same time, in the same way. What is evident also is the fact narration comes immediately, all the time (so that you don’t need to be so much in it, it’s already there). And, of course this exercise is about the performers, but in fact a lot happens on the side of the audience, as people have to be active, observe carefully in order to decide if they clap or not.

After (from 12:00 to 13:00), I give a lecture (one hour a day). The key word is STRATEGY. As we see they think via narration, history, and they want to stage it through turning it into dance. Strategy is a more interesting word. Dance is part of it, but not only. How you address something in a specific place, in a context, social, political, cultural… How you address to people, the audience. We show 5 short video, mostly contemporary art : 2 performances by Francis Alys (Hielo – the ice cube, and railingsfitz – the walk in London with a baguette de batteur playing on a metallic fence), one by the Pussy Riot (the performance at the St Sauveur cathedral in Moscow), one by Jordi Colomer (Anarchitekton) and finally an fragment of a dance piece  by La Ribot, Laughing Hole. The idea is to show clear strategies (on a surface level, apparently simple and evident) turned into an action in the city or a specific place, a church, or the stage. But in fact, an action which opens many levels of meaning. The dancers watch, and then questions comes. They are not really questions, but it goes immediately into their interpretation. I cut this, at this point and time it doesn’t matter, as the way they speak is to kind of “deliver a truth” about what they’ve seen, and as also the lecture is about the scenic forms, the strategy and the dispositif, and not the purpose or the lecture/interpretation we can have from it. What interests me, and I put it on the table, is the fact most of the narration, or the meaning, is not on the side of the performance, but on the side of the audience. There is an inversion. The audience can work much more, and imagine, question… This idea of strategy is also about considering the context, where you are, where and who is the audience… A question comes about the difference between dance and “non dance”, and if there is a specific audience for non dance. Always classifications, limits. We answer around this notion of PERFORMANCE, which is a very open way of thinking, and inside, many languages, many practices, many sensibilities. And the question is the one you choose because you like it, because it’s appropriate to what you want to address, and the way you want to stage it. The other question is about the audience. I postpone it, as we will specifically speak about it by the week. In general, it is visible that there is perplexity and that we open questions, spaces, doubts… I keep it quite silent, in order what they saw to process in their minds, and in the afternoon, the next morning, the questions start to come.

The afternoon is about projects. 5 seems to appear, we group the dancers in order them to experiment in others projects. They have 1h30 to work with the key word STRATEGY, and 5mn to perform. After, we will go back to discussion.

The presentation is a bit more disruptive than the previous ones. They try things, or they begin to try. Still shy of course. These moments are always a question for me, as in Strasburg school of art, I’m teaching on a long term basis with students, I know I’ve 4 years with them, sometimes 5. We have time. And here we don’t have. What can we expect from a one/two weeks process ? But at the same time, it is important to put a maximum of things on the table, and hope the dancers will take time after the workshop, to integrate what came.

———————–

2th October

I read : “L’art politique adéquat serait celui qui assure d’un même coup un double effet : la lisibilité d’une signification politique et un choc sensible né, au contraire, de l’étrange, de ce qui résiste à la signification. En fait, cet effet idéal est toujours l’objet d’une négociation entre les opposés, entre la lisibilité du message qui menace de détruire la forme sensible de l’art et l’étrangeté radicale qui menace de détruire toute signification politique. ” (J. Rancière, Et tant pis… 514). The question of being political is floating upon us. But it’s not easy because many of the performers don’t necessarily want to enter explicitely into this. And also because in the context of the African continent, it’s particularly un easy. And I’m not shure it’s up to me, as foreigner, to push this. I can put it on the table, but not shure I can push it. But I can suggest directions in order to do it but find an appropriate level of addressing, and find tactics to play with the way to address something to an audience, to a context.

This morning, the experimentation is about the relation between the audience and the performer, and the fact there is not a clear boundary, limit, between the two terms of the performance. One is related to the other. How to put this in a concrete way, in the space, for the dancers. We gonna work on an experimentation where they dance in group for 3 minutes, and then they have one minute to transmit the process to another group which is in the audience. Without interruption. They have to develop an intermediary time, where they are no longer performers, and not yet audience, or at the reverse no longer audience, and not yet performers.

We experiment it 4 times in the morning. At the same time each group has to experiment in space around the idea of sign and about the relation to the audience. Each group, is 2mn performing in space, and then 1mn in transition to the next group. No interruption between the 5 groups. The first time, they just shift, nobody watches the audience, nobody watch the next group (almost), their eyes are at the level of the horizon, abstract. One group ends, the other begins without link between them. They don’t consider at all there is an audience, they don’t address. We stop the process and step by step, we bring them into the possibility of playing with this intermediary time. But they are quite far from this possibility. During the next experiments they begin to try, they perform closer to the audience. But we see it will take time. And also even though they jump easily into the experimentation, they are quite serious and don’t play so much with it. A lot needs to be deconstructed, questioned. The idea performance is about a relation between individuals in space, and not primarily about a stage, a frame, a frontality and an audience sitting passively (even though they are never passive), has to be installed in their mind.

The 12-13h lecture is about being there, with an audience, and the fact that just with the elements you have around you, and the way to make them conscious, you can stage something.

As example, I take Performance Audience Mirror, 1977, by Dan Graham.

As this performance is conceptually radical in the sense it’s all about the presence of a performer in front of an audience, and the presence of the audience in front of the performer. The all thing is there. G describes himself, and then describes the audience. He turns himself in front of the mirror and describes his gestures, and then the one of the audience. All is about being there, and the distance which comes through the fact the performer describes himself, and then the audience, and as audience you are being described and at the same time you see yourself. How this goes into all levels of imaginary, into real and fiction at the same time, into representation… And how both performer and audience are at some point at the same level.

The dancers are silent. They ask questions about yesterday. About responsibility and risk. It’s quite obvious what we bring on the table is huge, they discover. The discussion about responsibility is interesting even though it’s addressed through this question “Am I allowed to, can I…”…

In the afternoon, work on the projects and 5mn presentation. I don’t intervene so much in this process, managed by Kadiatou and Opiyo. I just discuss what I saw during the presentations.

——————-

3th Ocotber

Tactic vs strategy. What we are working on with the dancers is more about the scale of tactic. How to find a way to perform, to address with what you have in hand, time, space, capacities, ideas…

We are not yet going in urban space (as I originally planned to). We need a real reason to work in non conventional spaces. As also our main space for work is a dance floor, but not really a theatre – we can work in many directions – relation with an audience. We can experiment there.

This morning for the experimentation: ask a difficult question they have to answer individually via 2/3mn on stage. The question is : WHY YOU ARE THERE ? And they cannot dance (modern dance). Such an open question, in such a short time is kind of an impossible situation. So, you have to find a tactic, a way to do something, or speak about something, a fragment, a presence, a… Whatever. The first serie of experimentations is quite shy. As usual the dancers jump into it, they want to try, but the fact they have to address something personal, makes it difficult. The possibility to interact with the audience is not really envisagée.

For the theoretical moment (12h-13h), I choose to show the dancers a quite long serie of images and videos about audiences in different contexts (not only theatrical) and situations. They are all about representation, performance, theatre, show up, addressing something, shifting from a position of audience to a position of performer… And I ask them what they notice, which image (or video) on they are interested in.

This serie of films and images, one after the other. A 15mn sequence. Watch and select one which is meaningfull for you. And what emerges clearly is two things : the people on the Tank, after winning a revolution, and the corean mass (mass meeting where everybody in the audience is “the same” – funerals of Kim Jong Il where people cry…). Some others images too, but none of the pictures where the audience is free to choose, to experience, like for instance in the Chinese street theatre. This is a very interesting point, as it makes clearer where the dancers have in mind, their imaginary of the stage. Representation space is mostly a space of constraint, of danger, being watched by a mass of audience you don’t know how to deal with… The space of freedom comes more easily when you are out of the theatre. When you see this, it becomes for me clearer why the interaction with an audience is not really an option in a theatrical space. It’s more about the street, others contexts, where there is of course a theatrical / performative dimension. But theatre is at the beginning a space of constraint, a space where you are watched. One of the dancers also focuses on an human zoo image, he says there is something strange in it.But none of them knows about that history, and they discover it. And human zoos were a dispositif of representation, in the most violent way. My intuition is there is a memory of this past in bodies.

At the end of the discussion we speak longly about this image (chinese outdoor circus), where the audience can focus freely and choose what they want to experience, and the way they want to do it. But reactions are strange because the dancers think the audience is too free, as if they were scared again with the possibility of that freedom. They also have difficulties to notice the multi directional space, the fact audience’s vision is not only in one direction, but can be multiple, the fact bodies can move, both performers and dancers. The “architecture” of the space is only by bodies.

—————-

4th October

After the training, we go back to the WHY YOU ARE HERE experimentation. But this time the dancers had time to think and prepar it. The content is often clearer. A lot about being shy in the way to speak and stage this. About bags, travelling, carrying a heavy bag. About dancing without dancing (as it is not allowed), about being together on stage, bringing others. A bit more political too: one woman is bringing talons hauts shoes, and asks a guy to walk with it. She shows him how to do, with authority. And another takes 5 dancers, stands them on a line in the middle of the bi frontal space, and asks them to sing their national song. And also some singular propositions, very small, minimal…

During the common discussion I ask the dancers to speak about the places where they perform and for who. I think they will speak a bit, and then I’ll put on the table the questions of emancipation and partage du sensible, by Rancière, but all of them speak longly about multiples experiences, and the all time goes. But it’s great as we learn a lot about the contexts in which they are, how they deal with it. There is a lot of similarities between the countries where they come from as their practice is quite marginale and highly instrumentalisée. They dance for the politicians (with the power directly expressed on the bodies, via type of dance, moments you perform, and the fear to perform in front of such people), for the gurus (when the guru moves, you moves the performance into his direction), they dance for the tourists (not so much in fact), they engage with disabled childs, with kids, with prisoners, families, communities, with a lot of specific audiences. They of course perform in the CCF for foreigners (white) and artists audiences (and this places are high spaces of validation for their non conventional practices). The discourse about educated and non educated audiences comes too, very clearly, as an evidence. The picture is quite scary, about what they have to face as dancers, and how the deal with it in their social, cultural and political contexts. They really try to push, to defend contemporary dance, to engage with non conventional audiences, villages, to be political, to exist as individuals, but the space is very small.

—————–

5th October

Yan presents his practice of sound, as noise/sound artist. He speaks about the difference between noise, sound and music. From that he develops around the psychological effects of sound, the practice of musique concrète, the theories of Pierre Shaeffer. He shows examples of pieces created with kitchen objects or printers… He also speaks about his work with dancers, like Dinozord, and how through microphones on bodies, he develops sounds which are coming directly from the performer. Very interesting approach as it shifts completely the question of music, as an added sound, as this question of noise and sound becoming music, allows to focus on space, on what is there, how it speaks about scenographic space and time, via sounds. And how for the dancers, it’s no longer about working on codes which are from outside, but deal with what they have around them, and turn it into sounds and music.

Then, I give a lecture about audience, emancipation, and performance, as an “answer” to the conversation of yesterday, and the way the dancers spoke about their practice, the audiences they work with, and the way they perceive spectators, educated or not.

In link with J.Rancière. I start from the fact the audiences are, in the way they speak, compartimented, and the fact also there is kind of a language for each compartiment. Or an idea of language. How things are in fact separated. Then I go into this difference between viewing and acting (agir). And the fact historically viewing is associated to passivity, which is bad. And one of the ways the avant gardes in the 20th century were re interrogating the practice of XIXth century theatre, was via reintroducing the action in the experience of the spectator: active spectator who will change the world, who will live and not only see and imagine, etc. Then from this idea of passivity, I went to the fact it is often associated to the audience as a mass of people. And this indifferenciated mass, has to be educated, they don’t know, they have to understand before they can for instance change their life, make the revolution. But the point is, who is telling them how to change their lives, the ones who know, the ones who are educated. Pedagogical logic, as Rancière says. So comes the point to reconsider (or consider) the spectator as an individual who has his own way to experience, in link with the fact viewing is not at all a passive situation. When you experience something, you select, you decide, you choose what you want to see or not. I wanted to address the fact, as performers, dancers, choreographers, they can always try to take the situation in which they are and work, play with it, turn it in their own way, not just accept the codes, even imposed, but shift them. And at the same time, stop considering audiences as “non educated”, but accept the fact everyone, whatever his background is, has his own way to deal with things, and as performer they can take into grant this, in the way they open space, in the way they “tell” a story, opens questions. I took the example of the American cinema who takes you by the hand into a story, gives you everything, until the conclusion, and doesn’t open any space for your point of view.

The discussion came around taking risks, how to know what is possible or not. But in fact they know, as they do all the time in life. The question of risks is also not necessarily the point, as you can also work on very little, almost invisible things; the point is not about being revolutionary, or doing visible and dangerous things.

And also, the fact a relation between an artist on a stage and an audience is a human relation, as complex as any human relation can be in life. This dimension of focusing the creative relation at the level of a human relation is really interesting in order to speak about scenography, as the question of convention of spaces, of references, of traditions, and also the diffuse question of power which is unclearly often there when you work on a stage, they becomes secondary, giving the major point to the human dimension.

In the afternoon, again, work on the projects and preparation of the tomorrow experimentation in urban space. We explain what is expected from the dancers in terms of interaction with audience and space. This is not completely a public space, as a shopping mole is a private area. But it’s an interesting space for experimentation, as people are coming there, especially on a Saturday.

——————

6th October

At 09:00 we are at the shopping mole. The dancers are divided in 5 groups. They have two hours time to choose a space in the shopping mole, how they will perform there and address to an “audience”, which are basically the people going to the shopping mole. It’s a way to confront them to a real audience, even though this audience doesn’t come specifically for a performance. It’s also a way to push them to pay attention to a context and adapt their project to it, and to decide the relation they will have with “real” people. The presence of spectators is no longer a fiction. At 12:30 they begin to perform.

The first group is kind of playing with the code of the customers coming to buy stuff. They walk in the allées between the shops, in kind of a theatrical way, some with caddies. The attitude of the dancers is different from one each other. Some are really open to people, in a kind way, so it works quite well, people understand what happens, don’t feel agressés, and play with it. Others dancers are more focused on themselves, self centred, and their performance becomes quite theatrical, but not in an interesting way.

The second group performs in front of the supermarket, in between stands where money is the key point. One dancer standing on a wooden box, like a statue in movement. He is performing on the sound of coins falling on the floor. But there is no coins, just their sound.  Kind of a strange mirror with what is happening around. People passing by, paying at the exit of the supermarket, are focusing on Adam (the dancer) at the same time. They don’t really stop their activities, but watch, passing by, this strange intervention.

The third group is in the parking. At the beginning of their intervention, their energy is quite closed on themselves, but after a few minutes, they find a way to play with what happens. Cars are entering in the parking, and they start to stop them, and guide them, through dance. It becomes quite interesting, as the cars and their movements are becoming part of the performance. Such a game is complex as you cannot interrupt things, people coming to park, so you have to find a way to occupy the interstices. In a second part of the performances, they go to the first floor and perform on a bridge between the shopping mole and an upper part of the parking. The spot is interesting, for me the dance or the movements of the performers is too exaggerated, but at the same time, they have to be seen from far, from down, and their position is interesting as they ask people to watch up.

On the back of the bridge there is transparent elevators. They also become a stage, one couple and one woman, imitating the gestures of a sex affair, and of a strip tease, but just suggested movements. We can see them from down and it becomes very funny as they appear and disappear while the elevator works. And also because customers are entering in the elevators, are surprised, and become suddenly visible from down, as audiences.

The next group is performing at the entrance of men’s toilets. Their performance is almost invisible, as you would have to enter in men’s toilets, and people don’t do it. But through the door, which opens and closes, you can see some elements. The dancers queue to enter, and then perform. It creates kind of a rumor outside, which is quite an interesting moment on the side of the audience. We see nothing but we wonder and we speak about it.

And then we go on the rooftop parking. Some dancers are trying to address people in the street, using the parking as a balcony. They don’t dance, and their gestures are quite invisible from down, just some guys and girls quite excités, trying to capture attention of people in the street. We suggest them to dance, as this balcony can be used like a stage.

The final group is performing in a restaurant. Their intervention is quite strong and breaks partly the tranquilité of the customers, eating there. Breaking things is an option, but at the same time you have to address it, and not put people in a embarrassing position. Which happens partly, as people are eating, they hesitate to shift their attention to the performers, and the performers don’t really find a way to involve them, and make understand what happens and what is their position.

But all this experimentation is about that, how you stage something, how your position, as dancer, as performer, builds the one of the audience. Many options are possible, but you have to be very clear, and ethical about it. That was a major challenge in this experimentation. And also the challenge was about the context, how you consider it, and play with it, be able to read it and use it as it suggests options, it suggests the way you will intervene. A performance is not only something you build in your bedroom, but something you build in interaction with the context where you perform. If you are able to do so, you can do it everywhere.

—————–

8th October

Morning : debriefing about Saturday. We react and comment what we have seen. We come back on the notions which are structurating such an experience. Opening to an audience, ethical dimension, analyse of the context, décodage, and how play with it. Intervening quite discretement, by involvement in the context, or at the reverse breaking the ongoing process of things. And how to shift daily life movements of people to be seen as theatrical by the audience, through performative interventions in the middle of people.

After the debriefing the dancers go back to their projects, as they didn’t present them to us last Friday. We give them 1 hour to prepar, and then to perform. After these presentations (8 projects), we meet, Opiyo, Yan and I, in order to select the six projects which will be finalised in Ouagadougou. The point is not to necessarily select on what we saw, but on the interest of what is on the table, as idea, as personal involvement. And on the potentials of development of these propositions. It’s also about the fact some dancers are potentially choreographers and some others are not, or not yet.

In the afternoon we announce the 6 selected project, or more exactly 5 of them. For 2 others projects we ask the dancers to continue their process, as we are not shure yet, and the decision will be taken by the end of the week.

I give my final lecture. With Opiyo Okach we decide to speak about Shift/Centre, a choreographic project we did 7 years ago in Nairobi (and which toured extensively) and which is about multi focality and freedom of the audience’s experience. This is also a way to put images and spaces on the concepts around space and audience, as we speak about this for quite some days, but without really showing dispositifs concrets.

I hesitate to speak about the notion of dispositif (In reference to Agamben and Deleuze, both referring to Foucault), as it is about bringing a new level of complexity in a very short time. The word strategy seems to have a strong impact on the dancers, as they use it constantly in many situations, in work or in others moments. They play with it, which means this term take them somewhere, they interrogate it, it challenges them. I’m about to finish my presentation and Yann Leguay is going to speak about the way he uses sound in a theatrical space, when a dancer asks : “What is a dispositif ” ? I have to answer. And explain how it is a way to, at the same time, unpack what you pack, how you have to take the power and clearly stage something, and assume it, but how a dispositif is also about the way, addressing something, you break it, you complexify it, you hide it. You keep it and at the same time open the possibility of ruptures, of it’s own destruction, you maybe open a space for madness. Of course suddenly the dancers are a bit confused (as until now, Strategy was about clearly staging something, and now I speak about breaking it), we speak quite a lot about what I stage, but the important point is for them to understand the fact having a strategy is not only about addressing something, saying something to people, to an audience (It would be too simple, and boring), and that creation is a space of freedom in order to interrogate people: and this, interrogating, opening spaces, is not only about being evident, but also about poetics, about sensations, and many others levels of experience. And a dispositif,especially when created by artists, is about that, about the codes, about the languages, about the sensations, about imaginary, about politics… and the way to map them altogether.

In continuation of the discussion, Yann Leguay shows many ways, through sound, to work with the idea of a dispositif.

————–

General comment

1.  2/3 weeks time is short for such process, as you work with quite young artists (in terms of experience), with quite a little background around performance, and all it’s implications. In two weeks you can semer in the heads and hope things will grow up. But there is no real time to enter in details, to deconstruct and reconstruct ideas together. As in order to do this, you first have to take people to a certain point, a certain level of maturation. But such a process is also very important. And the dancers know it. Not so much in the way they formulate it, but in the way they accept the process, they jump into the experimentations, they are not shy, it is visible they want to discover, and that they grab the opportunity.

2.  Also, such an approach about space and scenography, is quite important as it contourne, a more classical approach which would more focus on theatrical spaces and the way they work. These theatrical spaces are complex to deal with for young artists coming from the African continent, and more generally from non European areas. As their dimension of power is still very strong, and a form of memory of the past (colonial in a large way), is still cachée dans les coins. Theatrical spaces, especially the frontal one, are not part of an old history for the young dancers we worked with. But they have to deal with it when they tour, when they perform especially overseas. The point so, is to help them approach it with a bit of distance, and become able to perform in such spaces without being under it’s health (poids). How to perform on a frontal stage by focusing on the people in the audience and forgetting the place, how to be alone on a stage and feel you are in the middle of the audience, how to position your body in such a space in order to question it, to negociate it ? Next to the door ? How to be on a stage an feel you are in a library ?

3.  The question of emancipation, as staged by Jacques Rancière, is also crucial, as it deconstructs the clichés of “non educated” audiences. On the African continent, so called “non educated” audiences are the majority. And addressing creation, performances to theses audiences, which are basically THE audiences, is the real challenge, for the dancers we are working with in this process. This is a large space of freedom, of experimentation, if you understand the fact such a way of thinking, like “being educated” in order to understand a certain level of complexity or abstraction in art, is not the point, at all. Othewhise, artists are mostly stucked into a relation to very conventional and limited audiences, and most of them (authorities for instance, especially as described by the dancers during the talks), are clearly not interesting as a dance challenge. And even though it is crucial to travel and perform overseas, it cannot be the only space in terms of audiences.

Jean Christophe Lanquetin, Scénographe

Nairobi-Johannesburg-Paris, 01-09 Oct 2012.