‘COS Cards’, DD Dorvillier. Courtesy of DD Dorvillier
DD Dorvillier

COS it’s in the cards

‘A Catalogue of Steps (COS)’ is a performance and research project consisting of more than 300 choreographic fragments drawn from performance videos of Dorvillier’s work created in New York City between 1990 and 2004. The choreographic fragments are classified on reference cards and with an accompanying invented taxonomy. Live visits to this collection are organized in an exhibition context where fragments are danced over and over again. But this time without the original contextualizing materials such as lightning, scenography and music. Essential to the project is the possibility to practice the question : What do we see when we look at dance?. 13 colorful flags created in collaboration with designer Olivier Vadrot represent the 13 works of COS.

In COS it's in the cards’ visitors will be able experience the fragments through card-reading. They can participate by drawing reference cards and question cards. The performers then address the question by interpreting the information on the reference card, dancing the corresponding fragment, and/or showing a video of the same fragment.

A card-reading by choreographer Jennifer Lacey during a studio visit in 2014, inspired Dorvillier to explore how activating the cards exposes the dance, the visitors, and the performers to new processes of observing dance, in the present.

The cards were originally designed as working tools for the dance studio. Laying out the cards of a collection (usually 3 – 10 fragments) on the floor made it possible to activate the spatial and dramaturgical relationships between the different fragments. As the taxonomy evolves, the cards have become a space for play and creation in themselves. Responding to a sensitive question through the lens of a choreographic fragment, and the language used to describe it, stimulates the imagination. It opens up the relationship between the choreographic fragment, the catalogue card, its verbal description, and the spectator's very personal experience of a short abstract dance.

Concept and choreografie
DD Dorvillier
Flags
Olivier Vadrot
COS it’s in the cards performers
DD Dorvillier, Damien Briançon, Céline Larrère
Production and administration
Laura Aknin, Elise Rimbault
A catalogue of steps
was initially co-commissioned by Danspace Project, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), Atelier de Paris/Carolyn Carlson in Paris, and Festival Entre cour et jardins in Dijon. The project was developed during multiple LMCC artist residencies as part of LMCC’s Extended Life Dance Development program, through the Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC) at Florida State University, both made possible in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as Atelier de Paris/Carolyn Carlson in Paris, Entre cour et jardins, Dijon, ICPP Wesleyan University, Middletown, PS1/MOMA, Studiolabs at Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, STUK Kunstencentrum Leuven, Performing Arts Forum (PAF), St. Erme France.
Additional support
comes from the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Creative Capital Special Opportunities grant, and French US Exchange in Dance (FUSED).
Coproduction 2016
Mairie de Paris in the frame of Parades for FIAC (Paris, France)
Coproduction and residencies 2018
DRAC Bourgogne - Franche-Comté, Musée Fabre, ICI - CCN Montpellier, PACT Zollverein.
A catalogue of steps
is supported by CN D Pantin, La Manufacture Lausanne / Haute école spécialisée de Suisse occidentale, as part of research on its practices and methodologies, led by DD Dorvillier and dance researcher Myrto Katsiki, and in complicity with dance researcher Mathieu Bouvier.
  • Fri 15 Nov
  • 13:30 - 15:00
  • Fri 15 Nov
  • 16:00 - 17:30
  • Sat 16 Nov
  • 13:30 - 15:00
  • Sat 16 Nov
  • 16:00 - 17:30

Locatie

M Zaal 1.H

Prijs

language

English

Bijkomende info

performance - 90’
vr 15 nov – 13:30 & 16:00
za 16 nov – 13:30 & 16:00

continuous installation
do 14 nov — 18:00-22:00
vr 15 nov — 11:00-18:00
za 16 nov — 11:00-18:00
zo 17 nov — 11:00-18:00