Art as Lore. The Choreographies and Performances of Latifa Laâbissi

“I’m an image that moves,” Jean-Luc Verna recently remarked in an interview about his stage performances with the musical group I Apologize1 1  - Interview with Pascal Marius and Pierre Ryngaert, published in the educational issue of the Centre Pompidou’s “Arts de la scène et art contemporain” (2013): http://mediation.centrepompidou.fr/education/ressources/ENS-artsdelascene-arts-contemporain/01-verna.html.. This self-definition, which could apply to many other artists, highlights the current dynamism of creative practices that blend the visual and performing arts, notably dance, which, for want of a better term, are sometimes referred to as “live art.” This term includes the work of artists like Jean-Luc Verna, primarily known for his drawings, who create live performances in exhibition spaces and on stage, or dancers who perform in museums and art schools, borrowing from the visual arts processes such as the lecture or the writing of action protocols. . . One also thinks of Jérôme Bel, whose video of the performance The Show Must Go On (2001) was screened in exhibitions;2 2  - For example, in the exhibition Danser sa vie, held at the Centre Pompidou, from November 23, 2011 to February 23, 2012. Xavier Leroy, who held a retrospective of his danced choreographies at exhibition venues;3 3  - Rétrospective, Fondation Antoni Tapiès, Barcelona, 2012.  and particularly, Latifa Laâbissi, a self-described artist-choreographer,4 4  - Lecture at the École des beaux-arts de Nantes, 2009. whose work exemplifies the breaking down of disciplinary barriers. Her choreographies and performances, which lend themselves equally well to the dance stage, exhibition hall, or art milieu event,5 5  - For example, she recently participated in the exhibition Plus ou moins sorcières, at the Maison populaire de Montreuil in 2012, and in the conference Archive vivante. Théâtre, danse, performance, held in October 2012 at the Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7. See http://ufrlac.lac.univ-paris-diderot.fr/CERILAC_WEB/FR/PAGE_Event.awp? P1=16709]. draw on a wide range of elements beyond dance, specifically chosen for their ability to generate discourse and forcefully engage the audience. Laâbissi uses whatever she needs to draw the spectator’s attention to the heart of the issues she is exploring — from the skins of prehistoric creatures to the French flag, to accents parodying the songs of Pierre Perret. After training in the 1980s with Jean-Claude Galotta in Grenoble and at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York, she soon distanced herself from the movements they represented, finding them too detached from reality. Instead, she focused on practices reflecting the socio-political issues of their time. In her works, racism, prejudice towards the Other’s culture, and the fear of a circulation of people and ideas are addressed in ways that actively promote the migration of all forms of expression. She is inspired by the concept of “lore” as defined by William T. Lhamon Jr.:6 6  - According to William T. Lhamon Jr., “Lore composes the basic gestures of all expressive behavior, from moans to narratives, signs to paintings, steps to dances,” in Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000), 69. As Jacques Rancière wrote in the preface to the French edition of Lhamon’s book, lore is “a matrix of knowledge, accounts and practices that are freely circulated,” in Peaux blanches, Masques noirs (Paris: L’Éclat, 2008), 8 (Own translation). “folklore” without the “folk”; in other words, the various components of minority cultures that circulate from one group to another.

Some of Laâbissi’s recent works are explicitly aligned with a conception of dance that breaks with academic tradition and is open to an exchange with other art forms. The diptych consisting of the choreography Écran somnambule (2009) and the performed lecture La part du rite (2012) are a dual tribute to German Expressionist dancer Mary Wigman (1886 – 1973), who, in a spirit similar to the visual artists of her era, sought to discover movements emanating from the depths of the body. Wigman was friends with painters Emil Nolde and Ludwig Kirchner, whom she invited to her shows and even to her rehearsals, so they could witness every minute detail of her approach. Her choreographies, which allowed the painters to discover just how far the body can be distorted when repressed impulses are allowed to surface, inspired spontaneous paintings. The dancer and artists were driven by the same concerns and participated in the same way in the global movement of Expressionism, which was already breaking down the boundaries among disciplines.