Move: Choreographing You is at the Hayward Gallery in London until 9th January, before it moves to Germany. Move, according to the advertising blurb, "...invites you to become a participant - or even a dancer - in installations and sculptures by internationally renowned visual artists and choreographers...from the last 50 years".
Nauman 1970
The next exhibit, The House is The Body (Clark, 1968), had a long line of children waiting to go inside. It was a wonderful sensory experience, which manipulated light and texture. Moving through dark, soft, awkward and unexpected "passages" and "rooms" felt surprising and interesting. I was happy with a single journey through the exhibit but my son queued for a second journey. It was only after I'd left the exhibition that I read the exhibition notes and learnt that Lygia Clark created The House is the Body to evoke the phases of conception, pregnancy and birth (e.g. penetration, ovulation, germination and expulsion) "...the condition of being a women; and the process of artistic creation". I'm not sure whether I wished I'd known that before I navigated my way into the central womb-like chamber.
Both of these exhibits were physically interesting but I couldn't "dance" through them. Of course, that may not have been the intention of the artist. However, they certainly made me acutely aware of my body and how I move through different spaces, which is a starting point for dance.
As I moved through the exhibition I was teased more and more by the playful installations. Hangers (Forti, 2010) had an inconsistent look and feel. When I watched people "hanging" in the ropes they looked effortless, as if they had sense of graceful levitation, but when I stood in the ropes it was, at first, difficult to get in position, I felt clumsy, wobbly and, quite frankly, the ropes hurt my feet, a lot. I think this inconsistent look and feel is prevalent across many forms of dance, such that the act of dancing looks like one thing to the observer but feels its polar opposite to the dancer.
The piece I enjoyed interacting with the most was the conceptually simple Rooftop Routine (Jankowski, 2008/2010). I couldn't resist the video of how to hula-hoop, presented by Suat Ling Chua, accompanied by lively pop music and a floor full of hula-hoops. Once I got into my hip thrusting routine there was no stopping me. It felt like I was having a belly and back massage. I'm sure that had I spent long enough hula-hooping I would have slid through the Green Light Corridor without touching the sides.
My only disappointment was that I left the exhibition wishing I had danced more. The exhibition provided generous space and inspiration to dance and there were organized dance performances scattered throughout the exhibition. But it just didn't feel right. As I look back at images of the installations, especially of Adaptation: Test Room Containing Multiple Stimuli Known to Elicit Curiosity and Manipulatory Responses (Kelley, 1999/2010), I crave the opportunity to experiment more artistically and creatively with them through dance. Perhaps I need to re-visit the exhibition with a group of dancers, or on my own, or perhaps what was stopping me dance was the presence of other people who, after all, had paid to see the exhibits and not me. Whatever it was, there was a rope-less barrier between me and the exhibits which needs to be broken down.
Move: Choreographing You is a great sensory, physical and psychological experience. Be prepared to engage and be challenged.
Link to video of Rooftop Routine, on Facebook
Peter Lovatt
2nd January 2011
© Dr Peter Lovatt 2nd January 2011. All rights reserved.
Peter Lovatt is a psychologist and dancer based at the University of Hertfordshire.
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