The stage is set. No. Wait. You are in a gallery. The dancers are moving. No. Wait. They stop as soon as you settle your gaze on them. You take a step back but a performer is already approaching.

Thus begins your life as a visitor to production (sic); a work by Xavier Le Roy and Mårten Spångberg commissioned for the exhibition ‘Move – Art and Dance since the 1960s’.

Curated by Stephanie Rosenthal, ‘Move’ showcases artists from both visual arts and performance fields whose work invites active participation from the viewer/spectator. For example, body positions are altered in order to squeeze sideways along Bruce Nauman’s Green Light Corridor and the limits of balance and strength are tested through the swinging gymnast hoops of William Forsythe’s The Fact of Matter. Other works require the visitor’s presence to be completed as 3D sculptural constructions – Franz Erhard Walther’s sewn canvas sculptures for example, lay flat on the ground until somebody picks them up, steps in and integrates themselves into the form. Rather than standing back and appreciating the work from a static viewpoint, visitors are made aware of the possibility of experiencing art with their bodies.

As a dancer, my practice is based around this kinesthetic experience and gaining of knowledge. When performing in theatres, my viewer traditionally perceives me as an object – gazing upon my body within a space and from a distance. My body’s movements are what carry importance, as are the ideas I embody, express and represent.

This spectator and objectified performer relationship sits comfortably within the context of theatres. These spaces are where reality is suspended so that images, emotions and relationship are teased out, pushed to extremes and able to be observed from new positions. Under these hot lights, dance relishes in its ephemerality – a sequence of display and disappearance as the movement changes from moment to moment– and audiences hungrily watch for meaning, debate and some kind of self-reflection.

One of the questions that my involvement as a performer in production has addressed is what new opportunities does working in a gallery offer a contemporary dance artist?

One simple step towards harnessing these opportunities is to align the work with durational performance practices. The absence of clear and advertised start times moves the work beyond simply substituting theatre space with gallery space so that new modes of participation in performance arise.

Within production, there is continuous activity with no marked out performance space or clearly located performers. We dress in dance training clothes and our activity is to reproduce dance works from video. Once a curious visitor begins to watch this activity, we stop and approach the still staring visitor with a question:‘Are you looking for something?’ Their presence interrupts our activity and our question interrupts their objectifying gaze. The piece of work they were looking at asserts itself as also containing a subject-hood at the moment at which the performer leaves their recognisable dance activity behind, stepping up close to their audience to ask something direct and unexpected.

The question is a choreographed way into a discussion and has set parameters about work, labor and production; paying particular attention to possible similarities between dance production/economy and the tendencies of other modern industries toward immaterial labor^[1]. Importantly, these themes are permeable and the emphasis of the conversation is on constructing knowledge with the visitor rather than offering a set, finished product or endpoint. In a similar way to Walther's art work, the visitors to production are integrated into its structure. The crucial difference is that rather than fabric, production’s structure is made up of people acting as subjects. The discussion allows for the visitors to ultimately become as responsible for production’s construction as its performers are.

Rather than simply dance performance, production is a conversation. Speech shares a commonality with dance, as both can be said to unfold in the moment of doing. Speech is incredibly present and demands of all those speaking to express their opinions, to disagree, sympathise, re-contextualise, remember, go blank, struggle to articulate or be overly verbose. In short, to access their subjectivity in a gallery setting usually filled only with objects. Both audience and dancer participate as subjects and work as subjects.

When addressing issues of ‘work’ within dance practices, it is crucial that the conversational element to production means that this piece doesn’t result in anything tangible. Ideas circulate, but words are words and they trip, fall and connect only to vanish and be replaced with others words or by silence. What the exhibition is allowing for here is a space where a work can exist and produce only an experience. There is very little documentation and certainly no resulting physical object to relate oneself to.

How can we attribute value to this work then? We work but there is nothing to show for it. As a performer, production provides a critique on how art is usually consumed by the viewer as something given instead of something that is actively worked with. The viewer has to offer their own opinions into it and as the work builds, all participants – performers and spectators – are changed by it. It has nothing to do with good or bad, for better or worse, or mystical transformation. We speak from where we are at that moment. This simple act, nevertheless highlights the difference between us and the other art-objects. It also offers a stimulating alternative to how dance performances in galleries are usually treated.

‘Move’ has toured to the Hayward Gallery (London), Haus Der Kunst, (Munich) and K20 Kunstsammlung, (Düsseldorf). For more info please see the links below:

http://move.southbankcentre.co.uk/
http://www.kunstsammlung.de/en/home.html

For information on Mårten Spångberg and Xavier Le Roy’s work as well as production’s blog please see the links below:

http://martenspangberg.org/
http://www.xavierleroy.com/index.php
http://productionhayward.wordpress.com/

MOVE - Art and Dance since the 60s 
K20 GRABBEPLATZ
Grabbeplatz 5, 40213 Düsseldorf

July 19 2011 – September 25, 2011
Tuesday to Friday 10am-6pm Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays 11am-6pm.  Mondays - Closed.

Alexandrina Hemsley is an independent contemporary dance artist working in London and internationally. She regularly performs and choreographs as well as contributing written work for Bellyflop Magazine. 

^[1] For more on this area, please see Akseli Virtanen’s Organization Without End (2005): http://83.236.223.103/~marten/virtanen_organizations_without_end.pdf
Mårten Spångberg’s Immaterial Performance: Knowledge, Everything, Frames, Change’ (2006/2009): http://83.236.223.103/~marten/Immaterial_Performance.pdf