THE BORA BORA

EXHIBITIONOF CONTEMPORARY DANCE

Walkthrough in English

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE FROM EXHIBITION

Image credits:

Front: n/a, P1: Cheryl Mann, P2: Jeff Busby, P3: n/a, P4: Jaye Rhee, P5: Julie Lemberger, P6: Suncan Stone, P7: n/a, P11-A: Arnold Genthe, Duncan: JIFA/DR, P11-B: n/a, Wigman: Werner Eckelt, P11-C: Barbara Morgan, Graham: n/a, P11-D: n/a, Jooss: Punt/Anefo, P12-A: Anna Finke, Cunningham: Mark Seliger, P12-B: Eduardo Patino, Ailey: Eric N. Hong, P12-C: n/a, Béjart: n/a, P12-D: Peter Moore, Paxton: Peggy Jarrell Kaplan, P13: Richard Rutledge, P16: Abaca, P18-A: Olivier Look, Bausch: Gert Weigelt, P18-B: Chris Van der Burght, Platel: Chris Van der Burght, P18-C: Gadi Dagon, Naharin: Peggy Jarrell Kaplan, P18-D: Matt Nettheim, Newson: n/a, P19: Marten Vanden Abeele, P20-A: Denis Farley, Gravel: n/a, P20-B: J.M. Gourreau, Martens: Renate Beense, P20-C: Peter Lenarts, Ingvartsen: Jan Lietaert, P20-D: Christophe Raynaud, Dubois: Francois Stemmer, P22: Bora Bora, P23: Sune Rustrup

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Bora Bora Exhibition of Contemporary Dance

© Bora Bora 2014

Bora Bora - Dance and visual theatreValdemarsgade 1

8000 Aarhus Cbora-bora.dk

DANCE ISMOVEMENTIN SPACE AND TIME

Dance can take many different shapes.

Dance can be a means of interrelation, a cultural phenomenon with a social function such as ballroom dancing, tribal and folk dancing.

Dance can be a method of exercise or training, for the purpose of achieving an effect like strengthening one’s physique, coordination and movement ability.

At Bora Bora we focus on performance dance.

Performance dance -

- Expresses emotions, thoughts and ideas through movement, - Is performed on a stage. Usually with the aid of costumes, scenography, lights and music, - Engages the senses, intuition and physicality of the audience.

CLASSICAL BALLET

is danced in pointe shoes

focuses on lightness/high extension

dancers lift from the floor in order to “fly”

the dancers are sylphids and supernatural beings

expresses a Romantic quest for beauty

honours the tradition with great works (La Sylphide, Giselle, Swan Lake)

CONTEMPORARY DANCE

is danced bare-foot

utilizes the body’s weight

dancers use the floor as a “partner”

the dancers are “real” people

expresses the ideas and emotions of the times

emphasizes artistic individuality and development of a personal style

SOME KEYWORDS IN DANCE

Choreography: Means “to write with the body”. Arrangement of dance steps and movements for a performance. Among oth-er things it includes the order and the way steps and movements are coordinated.

Phrase: A choreography is an assemblage of phrases, which are smaller contained dance sequences.

Modern dance: An American term for the kind of dance which originated at the begin-ning of the 1900s in opposition to the clas-sical ballet. As a technical term it primarily covers the techniques developed by Martha Graham and Doris Humphrey.

Post-modern dance: American term for the dance succeeding “modern dance”. A radi-cal break with the aesthetics and techniques of “modern dance”, redefining the percep-tion of what dance is and can be. Different forms really start to develop.

Contemporary dance: American term in-corporating elements from “modern” and “post-modern” dance as well as non-western styles. Generally used as a catch-all term for any modern dance created since the 1970s.

Contraction – release: Key terms in Martha Graham’s technique, describing a contrac-tion of the diaphragm at inhalation and a counter movement at exhalation.

Tanztheater: Originally the name of the dance theatre established and developed by German choreographer Pina Bausch since the 1970s. The term is now often used when a company wishes to distance their work from the hierarchy of ballet. For example Dansk Danseteater or Nederlands Danste-ater. Also signifies a more free use of move-ments which can originate from different forms of dance.

Improvisation: An act of creation where the result is not given in advance but is created in the moment. Improvisation as method is often used when creating a dance perfor-mance.

Contact improvisation: A very free form of dance where the dancers maintain con-tact with each other’s bodies/body parts and thus are able to influence each other’s movements by varying degrees of pressure or tempo. This method is used by many cho-reographers to create a choreography.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE– DEVELOPMENT AND DEFINITION

Many kinds of dance are labeled modern or contemporary, including contemporary dance, new dance, abstract dance, dance per-formance, cross-over, and dance theatre. Ir-respective of how much of the performance is actually being danced and whether the performance is from 2010, 1988 or 1976.

Modern dance originated as an art form around 1900 as a reaction against the clas-sical ballet following a desire to create a new form of dance that spoke in a stronger and more natural way to a modern audi-ence. Modern dance was born as a rebellion against the Puritanism and conformity of the times.

Modern (contemporary) dance has existed

in Denmark since the 1970s. And the term contemporary dance is applied to any stage dancing that is not classical ballet.

Compared to the classical ballet, contempo-rary dance is based on a different aesthetic, often with more weight to the movements and a cultivation of a more “natural” body where the source of movements are sought within the dancer, and there is less focus on narrative structure.

Some contemporary dance tells a straight forward story or contains easily relatable elements like movements, images or moods. But there is also the very abstract dance that might not even have any recognizable melodic musical accompaniment.

CONTEMPORARY DANCE IN DENMARK

Contemporary dance is international in es-sence. Companies are often comprised of many different nationalities because differ-ent companies have different requirements for bodies, technical abilities etc. of their dancers. Contemporary dance can be found in most major cities in the world.

Modern (contemporary) dance came late to Denmark. Not until well into the 1970s did a few dancers and choreographers break with the very strong classical tradition culti-vated by the The Royal Danish Ballet.

Contemporary dance in Denmark is rep-resented by relatively few companies and a number of free choreographers. Danish

Dance Theatre is the national company and also the biggest in the country, but also Aa-ben Dans Productions, Recoil Performance Group, Granhøj Dans and Mute Comp. are well-known names on the Danish dance scene.

1992 saw the formation of the School for Contemporary Dance and a year later came Dansescenen, now Dansehallerne. The School for Contemporary Dance is now an integral part of the Danish National School of Performing Arts.

Dansehallerne is the biggest dance stage in Copenhagen, in Aarhus it is Bora Bora.

A hand-painted unitard from Merce Cunningham’s Summerspace, 1958.

Created by Robert Rauschenberg.

I didn’t invent dance. It existed before me, but it was sleeping and I woke it up.

- Isadora Duncan

THE PIONEERS

1900-1945

- represented byISADORA DUNCANMARY WIGMANMARTHA GRAHAMKURT JOOSS

Modern dance originated as an art form around 1900 as a reaction against the classical ballet following a desire to create a new form of dance that spoke in a stronger and more natural way to a modern audience.

Most of the pioneering was done in the US and Germany.

Duncan’s philosophy of dance moved away from the rigid tech-niques of ballet and towards free and natural movements inspired by the classical Greek arts, folk danc-es, social dances, nature and natural forces as well as an approach to the new American athleticism which in-

cluded skipping, running, leaping and tossing.

She said of one of her dances, “I created it and can dance it any time, but I cannot explain it”. So her art died with her. She depended on personal inspiration and response to the music, and never developed a formal technique that could be taught.

ISADORA DUNCANUSA, 1877-1927

In the 1930s Martha Graham de-vised her own personal movement language to express the psychol-ogy and emotion of characters. She found classical ballet too artificial and restrictive.

Graham was greatly influenced by her father, a doctor, who taught her to judge people’s motives from their movements. She evolved her own technique, based on perfect control and balance of opposing forces - “fall-re-covery” and “contraction-release”.

In the 1940s many of Graham’s works were inspired by the universal themes found in Greek mythology, and especially the strong female mythical heroines.

MARTHA GRAHAMUSA, 1894-1991

Jooss studied music and drama be-fore becoming a pupil of the influ-ential dance theorist Rudolf Laban.

In 1932 his dance group won an in-ternational choreographic competi-tion with his anti-war dance-drama The Green Table.

The opening and closing scenes took place around the green baize covered table at which most diplomatic conferences then took place. The second showed the effects of war upon individuals, from a soldier to a young mother. The movements were highly stylized, and the whole work showed the influence of German expressionism.

The Green Table is still performed and is as powerful and as relevant as ever.

KURT JOOSSGERMANY, 1901-1979

Mary Wigman was a pioneer of the German expressionist dance known as “ausdruckstanz” (expression dance).

For Wigman it was important that no movements were perceived as ugly as long as they expressed a true emotion. She danced without music and was preoccupied with themes of death and desperation. Wigman performed her first solo piece in 1914 and six years later she opened her own school in Dresden.

Wigman’s works were rediscovered in the 1970s during the development of the “tanztheater” style of which Pina Bausch was a primary representative.

MARY WIGMANGERMANY, 1886-1973

Dance is an art in space and time.The object of the dancer is to obliterate that.

- Merce Cunningham

1945-1980

- represented byMERCE CUNNINGHAMALVIN AILEYMAURICE BÉJARTSTEVE PAXTON

In the post-war era, modern dance begins to increasingly branch out in the US and Europe. The period spawns several choreographers who, each in their own way, innovate dancing and develop many dif-ferent styles, methods, techniques, and aesthetics. So the defining characteristics of the period from 1945 to the 1980s can only be diversity, individuality, and a blossoming of modern dance into many different directions.

THE INNOVATORS

Mercier “Merce” Philip Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer, who was one of the spear-heads of American post-modern dance as it originated more than 50 years ago.

He started his career as a dancer with Martha Graham but founded his own company, The Merce Cunningham Dance Company, in 1953. As a choreographer, teacher,

and leader of his own company, Cunningham has influenced the development of contemporary dance, and he created his own dance technique which is used by many to this day.

He worked closely with famous names from other arts, like the musician John Cage and pop artists Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg.

Throughout his career, Cunningham’s passion lay in exploring and breaking the boundaries of technology. Among other things, he started working with dance on film already in the 1970s and since 1991 he created all his choreography with the aid of the computer program DanceForms.

MERCE CUNNINGHAMUSA, 1919-2009

Maurice Béjart was a French-born Swiss dancer, cho-reographer, and opera director who founded the Béjart Ballet in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Béjart founded several schools: The Mudra School in Brussels, 1970-1988; The Mudra Afrique School in Da-kar, 1977–1985 and The Rudra Béjart School in Laus-anne in 1992. The Rudra Béjart School is still open and

is considered one of the most famous professional dance schools in the world.

Among his most famous works are his spectacular choreographies to great clas-sical music like Tchaikovsky’s The Nut Cracker, Ravel’s Bolero, and Stravinsjkij’s Le Sacre du Printemps.

MAURICE BÉJARTFRANCE, 1927-2007

Steve Paxton is an experimental dancer and choreogra-pher. His early background was in gymnastics before he started to work in dance and choreography, at different times training with Merce Cunningham and José Limón.

He co-founded the Judson Dance Theater and the ex-perimental group Grand Union.

He is probably best known for developing the dance method of “contact improvi-sation” - a form of dance which utilizes the physical laws of friction, momentum, gravity, and inertia to explore the relationship between dancers. Paxton believed that even an untrained dancer can contribute to the dance form and he subse-quently put a lot of effort into the study and mapping of pedestrian movement.

STEVE PAXTONUSA, 1939-

Alvin Ailey was an American choreographer and activist who founded The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City in 1958. Through his choreographies, Ailey is best known for bringing contemporary dance to a wider audience and also for pioneering afro-american participation on the dance stage.

His choreographies were a dynamic, living mix spring-ing from his training in ballet, contemporary dance, jazz, and African dance tech-niques.

Ailey insisted on creating a complete theatrical experience in his choreographies and included costumes, lighting design, and scenography. His style was eclectic and focused on creating a combined theatrical expression and style rather than on utilizing or developing a specific technique.

He said that what he wanted from a dancer was a long, unbroken leg line and deftly articulated legs and feet (“a ballet bottom”) combined with a dramati-cally expressive upper torso (“a modern top”).

ALVIN AILEYUSA, 1931-1989

Tanzt! Tanzt!Sonst sind wir verloren.

- Pina Bausch

THE GREAT COMPANIES

1980-now

- represented byPINA BAUSCHALAIN PLATELTHE BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANYDV8 PHYSICAL THEATRE

Today there exists a plethora of great and influential dance companies all over the world. They are vastly different in artistic expression and their styles usually reflect that of the directing choreographer. We present you with a few of them.

Pina Bausch was one of the major figures in contemporary theatre and dance. As the name of her company - Tanztheater Wuppertal - implies, her works are “dance-theatre” and not pure dance.

Bausch’s works are like life in that they seem to be made up of random images and events, following no rational sequence and often appearing to make no sense. Their power lies in the cumulative effect and in what each individual member of the audience brings from his or her own experience. “Interpretation,” Bausch said, “always depends on the way you watch, and there is always another way to watch it”.

Pina Bausch was in the 1970s one of the first choreographers to have her dancers perform in ordinary clothes and to let them talk and sing on stage.

PINA BAUSCHGERMANY, 1940-2009

The Batsheva Dance Company was founded in Tel Aviv by Martha Graham and Baroness Batsheva De Rothshild. Today it is directed by the internation-ally acclaimed choreographer Ohad Naharin. In 1990 he founded The Bat-sheva Youth Ensemble which is also recognized internationally for their

high professional standards.

Ohad Naharin has developed the technique “gaga” which is used in training by The Batsheva Dance Company as well as many oth-ers. “Gaga” opens up the dancer’s sensation to movements that are buried and not yet tested by the dancer herself. Says Naharin, “Dance is about sensations, not about an image of yourself”.

THE BATSHEVA DANCE COMPANYISRAEL, 1964-

Platel founded the internationally re-nowned company Les Ballets C de la B (Les Ballets Contemporains de la Bel-gique) in 1984.

The company consists of both classi-cal and contemporary dancers. Platel’s method is improvisational, in that he lets the dancers move, sing, and recite text, and then creates his works from the material made by the dancers. Among his best known works are Iets Op Bach from 1998, and Gardenia from 2010, both of which have been performed in Aarhus.

Founded in London by a collective of dancers led by Lloyd Newson. DV8 perform works that break down the barriers between dance, theatre, and personal politics and - above all - com-municate ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously.

DV8 (Dance and Video 8’s) pioneered the dance film and -video. This reflects the company’s ongoing interest in how two primar-ily visual media, film and contemporary dance, can enhance one another and reach a crossover audience from within both forms.

DV8 had an international breakthrough with the dance film Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men from 1990.

DV8 PHYSICAL THEATREUK, 1986-

ALAIN PLATELBELGIUM, 1959-

To dance is to participate actively in the vibration of the universe.

- Sasha Waltz

THE NEW, THE YOUNG

- represented byFRÉDÉRICK GRAVELJAN MARTENSMETTE INGVARTSENOLIVIER DUBOIS These four choreographers represent the profiles of a young generation. They are characterized by having university de-grees, good dance educations, and a high degree of cross-dis-cipline. That menas a coupling of different art forms and often sciences as well.

The world has become a very large and inspiring pot of artists within contemporary dance.

Gravel trained as a dancer at l’UQAM in Montreal in 2003 but proceeded to study choreography before finishing his degree in 2009 with a thesis titled The role of the dance artist in demo-cratic society. He is a dancer, a choreographer, a lighting de-signer, a musician, a composer, and a director. Gravel’s mentor was Daniel Léveillé and he has danced both in his productions as well as for other recognized choreographers.

With a certain contradiction and nonchalance Frédérick Gravel fuses popular culture and the avantgarde into a refreshing and powerful cocktail in his performances. He writes his own music and is on stage as guitarist and singer, while also dancing in some scenes. In some circles in Canada he is known better as a rockstar than a choreographer.

His performances are raw images of life with a physical intensity, virtuosity, nakedness, sexuality, and an aching vulnerability.

Gravel’s Usually Beauty Fails performs at Bora Bora on the 20. and 21. of May, 2014.

FRÉDÉRICK GRAVELCANADA, 1978-

Mette Ingvartsen is a Danish choreographer and dancer trained at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. She studied in Amsterdam and Brussels from 1999 to 2004. She has worked with a number of great choreographers but since graduating she has experimented a lot and has created recognized performances of her own.

For the last five years Mette Ingvartsen has been focus-ing on movement in space without the human body. She has created performances like Evaporated Landscapes and The Artificial Nature Project which deal with nature and the natural elements in a movable world and a world of movements.

Mette Ingvartsen is currently writing a PhD at a new institute for choreography research in Stockholm. She is artist in residence at the KAAITHEATER in Brus-sels from 2013 to 2016.

METTE INGVARTSENDENMARK, 1980-

Jan Martens studied at Fontys Dance Academy in Til-burg and finished his education at the Artesis Conserv-atory in Antwerp in 2006. He has sinced danced for Koen De Preter, United-C, Mor Shani, and Ann Van den Broek.

Jan Martens started creating his own choreographies in 2009 and his style and focus quickly gained success and popularity. Since 2011 he has been working at the production house Frascati in Amsterdam where he has created some of his most precise choreographies.

In his performances Martens displays the beauty of the imperfect human being in simplified scenes. It is never complicated choreography or virtuoso jumps but rather intense bodily meetings. His style is a balance between telling a story and sticking firmly to his premise.

Olivier Dubois studied Oriental languages and culture then law and economics before he decided to become a dancer at the age of 22. He was a pupil of, and dancer for, Jan Fabre from 2003 to 2007.

In 2007 he formed his own company, COD (Companie Olivier Dubois), and has since created a number of transgressive choreographies. In 2012 he shocked the festival in Avignon with his performance Tragédie which bears some resemblance to Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

January 1st 2014 he succeeded Carolyn Carlson as artistic director of the dance theatre CCN in Roubaix.

OLIVIER DUBOISFRANCE, 1972-

JAN MARTENSBELGIUM, 1985-

2011 - present: Bora Bora

Bora Bora is a production house for dance and visual theatre. No permanent company is associated with the venue but the house co-produces performances by Aarhus com-panies like DON*GNU, dadadans, Kassan-dra Production, Club Fisk and others.

Bora Bora also presents both national and international guest performances and hosts festivals and residencies.

2001 - 2007: GRAN Theatre for Dance- directed by Palle Granhøj.

The venue presented the works of Granhøj Dans as well as national and international guest performances. Palle Granhøj utilizes the so-called “obstruction technique” and has created performances that tour the world.

Granhøj Dans is currently located at Kloster-port, Aarhus.

2007 - 2011: Archauz

Originally directed by Jens Bjerregaard, later Louise Friis. Jens Bjerregaard’s com-pany Mancopy presented their works on the stage and also invited guest performances from here and abroad. Jens Bjerregaard’s choreography is characteristically abstract and step-based.

Under Louise Friis’ direction the Youth Company gained a prominent role.

1991 - 2001: MBT Dance Theatre- directed by Marie Brolin-Tani.

Primarily showcasing the works of Marie Brolin-Tani, which were dramatic choreog-raphies with an emphasis on story. The com-pany comprised six to seven international dancers. Guest choreographers occasionally created works for the company.

Marie Brolin-Tani recently became director of the Black Box Dance Company in Hol-stebro.

HISTORY OF THE DANCE VENUE