Art stations fundation - by Grażyna Kulczyk

New York, early 1960s. In Greenwich Village a group of dancers and choreographers – Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and others – make a revolution and invent postmodern dance. They proclaim that everything can be dance and introduce even smallest everyday movements into the dance idiom. Saying big NO to any theatrical staffage, they move dance out of theatres to streets and city squares and – first of all – to contemporary art galleries and museums. Thus, for the first time in history, they grant choreography with the status reserved so far only for visual arts, and permanently introduce performative actions to curators and gallery spaces. Avant-garde fascination with everyday life (and movement) and surrounding around us (social and political) reality, plus inspirations derived from the newest contemporary art trends – all that indicated directions of choreography development and up to now constitute the main points of reference for all, not only experimental, choreographers and performance artists.

LET’S DANCE exhibition is coming to its climax!
From the very beginning it was our wish to make it a platform for discussion on, and critical confrontation with post modern dance heritage.
Within INTENSIVE PERFORMATIVE WEEKEND we invite everybody for – practical and theoretical – reflection. We will host American choreographer Trajal Harrell who since 2001 has been obsessed with the question “What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the voguing ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?” By imagining a theoretical meeting between Voguing and Post-modern dance, much of Yvonne Rainer's 1965 "No Manifesto" is put into crisis. Most of the NO's become definite MAYBE'S…
Within LET’S DANCE, and thanks to collaboration with Music and Dance Institute, we have invited 3 Polish dance artists to critically confront the topics introduced by exhibition. Residencies were granted to Agata Siniarska, Marta Ziółek and Przemek Kamiński (that worked with dramaturge Mateusz Szymanówka). The main focus was directed to inspiration from - but also critical reflection on - post modern dance , especially in the context of own choreographic practice. The result of residencies will be shared with audience within open showings and then discussed also during final public talk featuring LET’S DANCE curators and artists.
In front of our eyes dance becomes more and more democratic. Utopia of the 60s. seems finally become true. But, is it really ?

WEEKEND’S SCHEDULE
saturday 10.10

15:00
LET’S DANCE – curatorial guide by Tomasz Plata
Art Stations gallery
Free entrance

16:00
POST-RESIDENTIAL OPEN SHOWINGS :

Agata Siniarska
HYPERDANCES
Art Stations Gallery

Przemek Kamiński / in collaboration with Mateusz Szymanówka /
New unfinished solo for sneakers, past tense and a group of people
Slodownia +2

Marta Ziółek
5 things or some statements on choreography
Slodownia +2

Free entrance

19:00
TRAJAL HARRELL
ANTIGONE JR
tickets ( 15/ 10PLN) available at info points of Stary Browar and at www.ebilet.pl

SUNDAY 11.10

16:00 POST-RESIDENTIAL OPEN SHOWINGS
Agata Siniarska, Marta Ziółek, Przemek Kamiński (with Mateusz Szymanówka)
Free entrance

18:00 lecture
TRAJAL HARRELL
TWENTY LOOKS OR PARIS IS BURNING AT THE JUDSON CHURCH
Free entrace

Since 2001 the New York dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell puts next to each other two dance traditions: that of avant garde / post modern dance and that of voguing - dance style that started in the ballrooms of Harlem, a form of dance derived from catwalks and poses of high world fashion and practised by African-Americans and Latinos, gays and transsexuals. This has resulted in a series of seven performances of different “sizes” (from XS to L) under the common name of Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (referring directly to the famous documentary on Harlem voguing scene directed by Jennie Livingston).
Within the lecture, Trajal will tell about creation of the cycle led by a question: what would have happened if the voguing community has arrived to Manhattan to dance next to protagonists of Judson Church ?