Conference Talk: Thinking Dance as an Exhibition

International Conference: Through the stage to the museum. Performing arts in museums 

Paris (Musée du Louvre, BnF / INHA, Musée d’Orsay)

18.-20. November 2015

In recent years museums and galleries have devoted particular attention to performance and dance art and dedicated a growing number of their exhibitions to live performances. My lecture reviews how dance has become embedded in the visual art context. It pays special attention to the presentation of contemporary dance in a concept of an exhibition. The focus lies on the work of the choreographers Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Xavier Le Roy who have moved beyond the theatre stage and explore museums and visual art spaces with their choreographic practice. By an interdisciplinary approach and an analysis of their choreographic works shown in exhibition spaces, the following research questions will be discussed: 

How can dance be presented in the format of an exhibition, what does it mean to “perform as an exhibition” and what are the outcomes of the interplay between the ephemeral dance and the exhibition form?