Do-Re-Me

Research output: Non-textual formPerformance

Abstract

Do-Re-Me is a live duet of no fixed duration. A strange and unnerving action-image, Do-Re-Me merges legible actions of identifiable limbs with the presence of an uncanny, amalgamated form.

Research Questions:
Q1) In what conditions can the appearance and actions of human bodies interrogate how we recognise what is human?
Q2) How can choreography question and expand the politics inherent to viewing conventions of art galleries?
Q3) How can choreography engage and challenge ideas of subjectivity and the human body as they relate to notions of the public and public space?

Do-Re-Me explores the potentials of the body as form, eschewing expressions of narrative, emotion and virtuosity. As limbs flail and reach for movement, the integrity of the body’s form is continually destabilised and transformed. This offers an embodied proposal, answering Q1, that the parameters for recognising a human, and a human as a singular subject, are contingent on context, form and perspective.

Exploring Q2, Do-Re-Me was presented in multiple gallery formats, including a mixed-media group show and solo gallery space. It unsettled viewing conventions by refusing a separated stage, elapsing over uncertain duration and temporarily appearing under labels addressing other artworks. In a museological context, this disrupted histories of figuration as representation and objecthood, emphasising instead galleries’ potential to host unstable and generative bodies.

Presentations in multiple outdoor sites, including courtyard, market and park, and costume of tarpaulin, discussed Q3, highlighting privatised public spaces as sites where recognition of a body as human is dependent on certain permitted behaviours, designating others an inhuman realm.

Its public presentations in different contexts led Do-Re-Me to be seen by approximately 3500 people from constituencies key to its enquiries: gallery visitors and visitors to public spaces.

Ultimately, Do-Re-Me proposes human matter as our bodies’ capacities to create new experiences of relation between people, space and objects.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationLondon 2014-2015
PublisherHayward Gallery
EditionVolumes Project, Mirror City Exhibition
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Keywords

  • Choreography
  • Visual Arts
  • Dance
  • Art Galleries

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