Art stations fundation - by Grażyna Kulczyk

A dance stage converted into a gym? Or a disco dance floor? Or a fashion catwalk? Contemporary dance is increasingly happening in a ‘between’ sphere: between the conventions of art and the space of ordinary behaviours. Artists are looking more carefully at things that are within arm’s reach: at how we move in the street, in clubs, when we are jogging, when we are socialising or even during sex. And they turn this into subject of their works. Obviously, this practice would be difficult to imagine (or at least it would not be very legible) if earlier, in the mid 1960s, postmodern dance makers like Yvonne Rainer or Steve Paxton, did not reach the conclusion that anyone could be a dancer, and that anything could be dance – even ordinary walking or running. Today, we continue to be confronted with the consequences of that discovery: not only do we see the simplest everyday gestures on stage, but also, we often look at dancing amateurs as the direct successors of the postmodern dance classics.

Right before our eyes, dance is becoming more and more democratic. The utopia of the 1960s is finally turning into reality. Everybody is dancing: amateurs, artists, celebrities – people who, according to common perception, “can” dance, and those who do not quite get it right. Moreover, both groups are imitating one another. At the same time, we are becoming increasingly aware that the movement schemes suggested to us by mass culture are subtly, albeit effectively, disciplining us. As it liberates us, dance subordinates us too. Consequently, as we observe the current process of democratisation in dance, we also need to see its other side: the achievements of all the artists in whose works dance is not as much a promise of uninhibited expression, but rather a metaphor of public training. An attempt to describe this tension is the LET’S DANCE exhibition which provides a context for this year’s Old Brewery New Dance at Malta programme.

For over a decade, Art Stations Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk has been involved in activities that provide a plane for the agreeable coexistence of contemporary choreography and the visual arts. This is the ideal venue for projects in which the limits between these fields turns out to be barely perceptible, or in fact, imperceptible at all. The opening night of the exhibition will be one of the highlights of this year’s programme. Its subject range (which will juxtapose excerpts from some of the major dance performances of the recent years with the works of some of the best visual artists, with various video clips in which dance is the main theme and with some amateur films found on the Internet) will constitute a major framework for the main theme of the festival performances staged in Studio Słodownia +3.

The avant-garde fascination with everyday life (movement) and the (social and political) reality, so typical for the postmodern dance revolutionaries, in addition to inspirations stemming from the latest trends in art, have determined the directions in which choreography has evolved across the world. They continue to be the main point of reference for all exploring (and also conceptual) choreographers and performance artists. Hence the shows which we will see in Stary Browar this year will be performed both by international stars, for instance Jérôme Bel and Willi Dorner, and acclaimed younger dance makers, for instance Frédéric Gies, Isabelle Schad and Rebecca Lazier, as well as representatives of the youngest generation of choreographers who base their work on their fascination with everyday movement and popular movement practices. From these, they will construct new, albeit quite familiar to the audience, movement lexicons that have the capacity to effectively and critically communicate to us the reality which surrounds us. There will also be a number of artists who, following the belief that everything can be dance, will challenge the viewers by consistently expanding the definition of choreography. There will also be those who, following the exhibition’s catchphrase, will provoke us into action (both on stage and in the gallery) giving us an opportunity to personally experience and co-create dance. And everything will be delivered in democratic tone and in popular culture form, because it was not until the emergence of mass popular culture that we have all been able to dance, and ironically, it is here that the legacy of Rainer and Paxton is the most alive.

So LET'S DANCE!

Old Brewery New Dance at Malta: June 8th-28th czerwca (curator: Joanna Leśnierowska)
LET’S DANCE exhibition: 19th June-18th October (curators: Joanna Leśnierowska, Tomasz Plata, Agnieszka Sosnowska)