“Performance art that is smart, severe, even philosophical, and at the same time cheeky and funny and entertaining”
Grand and philosophical homage to a pioneer within choreography.
Jérôme Bel returns to Black Box teater this fall with his newest piece Isadora Duncan. With this piece devised for Elizabeth Schwartz, a respected dancer, teacher and dance historian, Bel draws a portrait of the deceased choreographer Isadora Duncan, based on her autobiographical work, Ma Vie – My life. Beneath the romantic figure, Duncan stands out as a visionary choreographer. The piece examines an artistic pioneer from her American roots to her ultimate demise in France. It uncovers a woman who was a feminist, Darwinist, communist and an advocate of free love. Through her great freedom of expression, favouring spontaneity and naturalness, she provided the bases of modern dance, which in turn lie at the root of contemporary dance.
When linked with Jérôme Bel’s concerns about dance as a lever of emancipation, Isadora Duncan’s teaching, rekindled here, makes it possible to assert the topical nature of her critical potential.
French choreographer Jérôme Bel is part of a generation of choreographers who rose to prominence in the mid-1990s. He explores the relationship between choreography and popular culture, dancer and spectator, as well as our understanding of art and contemporary dance. Bel last visited Black Box teater during spring season 2019 with his iconic piece from 1995 titled Jérôme Bel.
This performance was initially planned to be shown at Black Box teater during Fall 2020.
The performances in Oslo are presented with the support of Institut Français de Norvège.
“What is special about Jérôme Bel’s production Isadora Duncan is that it does not understand Isadora Duncan’s dances as an object of exchange, but rather their interpretations. The dancer Elisabeth Schwartz interprets six dances by Isadora Duncan as faithfully as possible by performing them, and she turns these interpretations into an object of interpretation for the audience itself.”
