Let's Dance ! Station expérimentale

Film Program from the Collection of the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP)

As early as the late 1950s, artists such as John Cage, Allan Kaprow, David Tudor, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and Charles Olson were developing a truly transdisciplinary perspective at the Black Mountain College, breaking down the boundaries between artistic fields and attempting to transcend traditional conceptions of art. Furthermore, all their aesthetic research and experimentation aimed to set aside the subject and the self, producing works that did not directly refer to a singular biography and freed themselves from the limits of the personal imagination. Performance is not an artistic genre but a catalyst that traverses all fields of contemporary creation conceived within its broader context. To perform is to construct shifts, hypotheses, and situations: this is the transdisciplinary condition of contemporary creation.

Thus, ever since the invention of the recording arts—first cinema and then video—artists, dancers, and choreographers have taken over the realm of moving images to put performances into perspective, to outline research hypotheses, and to open up new fields of visual and auditory experimentation. Conversely, they have helped enrich these fields by placing images within their broader context and by inventing an art of the gaze.

This is the performative cinema that a certain number of artists are truly inventing today: a cinema that literally “performs” both its content and its form, drawing unprecedented temporal loops. Furthermore, these temporal constructions are developed from scores—sounds in the musical sense of the term, but also scores of gestures and attitudes—to model experiences and forms to be interpreted, thus taking the works to the boundaries between music, cinema, and dance. The films presented here, selected from the collection of the Centre national des arts plastiques, fit within this perspective. The films presented constitute portraits of the artist as an actor of his own making, drawing unprecedented temporal loops, often venturing into the realm of dance as experimental stages.

As the heir to the national collection created by the French Revolution, the CNAP’s collection contains more than 100,000 works, some of which are housed in French museums or loaned for exhibitions. It has successfully expanded to encompass new trends in contemporary art. The Let’s Dance! program, conceived by Pascale Cassagnau and featuring video works from the Centre national des arts plastiques’ collection at the intersection of dance, performance, and music, demonstrates the works’ ability to shape the art of the viewer.

The film program will be shown during the opening weekend in the Auditorium of Médiathèque José Cabanis, and throughout the festival in the Auditorium of Les Abattoirs. 

Discover below the films scheduled at the Médiathèque José Cabanis and their screening dates.

Screening presented by Pascale Cassagnau, Head of Audiovisual and New Media Collections at the Centre national des arts plastiques. 

• Eszter Salamon, Sommerspiele (Summer Games), 2023 (25’41’’)
• Boris Charmatz, César Vayssié, Les Disparates, 1999 (22’)
  
  → Fri. May 29 at 2:30 PM
  → Sat. May 30 at 3:30 PM
  → Sun. May 31 at 4:30 PM

Discover below the films scheduled at Les Abattoirs, which will be screened continuously during the museum’s opening hours.

• Dennis Adams, Make Down, (Makeup Removal), 2005 (34’)
• Marcos Avila Forero, Atrato, 2014 (13’52’’)
• Eleanor Antin, The King, 1972 (51’18’)
• Cécilia Bengolea, Dancehall Weather, 2014–2019 (20 min)
• Charley Case, Man Walking, 1999 (2 min 43 sec)
• Boris Charmatz, César Vayssié, Les Disparates, 1999 (22 min)
• Brice Dellsperger, Body Double 17, 2001 (16’27’’); Body Double 23, 2007–2010 (7’29’’)
• Jerome Kevin Everson, Round Seven, 2018 (19’)
• Marine Faust, 95969798, 1995–1998 (26’)
• Sylvie Fleury, Twinkle, 1992 (29’35’’)
• Lothar Hempel, Me, Myself and I, 1993 (8'); A Very Sad Story, 1993 (7’51’’); Superstar, 1993 (8')
• Teun Hocks, Lamp, 2002 (1’12’’)
• Joachim Koester, Tarantism, 2007 (6’30’’)
• Kelly Lamb, Jump Rope, 1998–2000 (2’); Caught Inside/Kiss, 1999–2000 (3’)
• La Ribot, Another pa amb tomaquet, 2002 (12’)
• Joao Onofre, Untitled Version (I See a Darkness), 2007 (4’18’)
• Chloé Piene, YGBMY (You're Gonna be my Woman), 1997–2000 (4’26’’)
• Eszter Salamon, Sommerspiele (Summer Games), 2023 (25’41’’)
• Albert Serra, Sun King, 2018 (61’)
• Lorna Simpson, Cloudscape, 2004 (3’30’’)
• Manfred Sternjakob, Video No. 2, 1990
• Claudia Triozzi, Five Years, 2000 (6’)