CREATION MAY, 10th and MAY, 11th
Le Granit, Scène Nationale de Belfort

EXQUISITE CORPSE
for 58 choreographers and 7 dancers

Exquisite corpse, also known as exquisite cadaver or rotating corpse, is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled, the result being known as an exquisite corpse or cadavre exquis in French. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. «The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun.») or by having access to an exerpt from the previous contribution.

The idea was originally developed by a group of artists and writers including Jacques Prevert, Yves Tanguy, and Andre Breton. The first sentence written using this process was Le cadavre - exquis - boira - le vin  - nouveau : The exquisite – corpse – will – drink – the new - wine. Hence the name le cadavre exquis or exquisite corpse. Since its development, the process has manifested itself across a  range of different artistic disciplines, commencing with poets and writers, but moving into the visual arts through artists such as Man Ray, Joan Miro and Salvador Dali. There have been a number of large scale multi-media and trans-disciplinary Cadavre Exquis performances, some of which are on-going. These include the live/video performance Synesthesia, presented annually in New York.

More recently, the internet, with its rhizomic multiplicity, heterogeneity and connectivity has provided a fertile ground for exploration of the Cadavre Exquis process, especially in fields such as digital arts.

The work further develops two of the central ideas which Joanne Leighton has been exploring in previous works: firstly, the use of pre-existant and non-original material as the basis for new choreographic work, and secondly, questions regarding authorship, originality, and the ownership and transfer of intellectual and cultural property.


For Exquisite Corpse, each of the 58 choreographers will be given access to the last few seconds of the previous section. They will then compose a choreographic response to it, a continuation. Subsequently, the last few seconds of this new material will be passed to the following choreographer, and so on. To start the process, Joanne Leighton will create the first « choreographic module ». At the conclusion of the process, the material will be assembled in the order in which it was created, with each « choreographic module » following its generative precedent.

This long sequence of solo material will become the score for the dance material, and will be used as the starting point and base for the construction of a work for 7 dancers.
For the final group work, the solo material will always be present in its original form, and will act as a guiding thread, a « fil conducteur ». However it will be expanded and developed by the 7 dancers across the duration of the full-length work through the use of a range of techniques. For example, duos, larger sections in unison, multi-layered renderings - all will spin off from the original «choreographic module», which becomes, in effect, a score to be (re)interpreted. This is very similar to the compositional technique in music, “cantus firmus” (fixed voice) where a pre-existing monophonic melody is used as the basis for the construction of a new polyphonic work.

Central to the process of creation of Exquisite Corpse, is the question of documentation and transmission of danced material. Alongside direct oral transmission or the use of video, what non-textual forms of notation, composition, documentation or description are available to us for the conservation and the exchange of choreographic content ?



CONTACT CCNFCB :
Edwige Dousset - Production and Tour Manager

E-Mail : e.dousset@ccnfc-belfort.org
Tél. : + 33 (0)3 84 58 45 30 / + 33 (0)6 72 70 27 69

DISPLAY/COPY ONLY
quintet exploring the original work and the copy

Display/Copy Only is the result of a collaboration between choreographer Joanne Leighton and a quintet of male dancers. The piece takes the work of other artists as the basis for a new, original work. In doing so, the work explores the status of an “original work”, the nature of copying, and also the ownership of a piece in regards to its creator, viewers and other artistic practitioners.

For 1 Euro, Joanne Leighton bought the rights to reproduce and transform a series of short choreographic works from 13 choreographers and architects*. The choice of contribution was left entirely up to the choreographers, dancers and architects. Some chose to create directly on the dancers of the company, others gave extracts from their existing choreographies, some gave improvisational tasks or detailed instructions.

The company consequently used this second-hand material in the making of a new original work. In making Display/Copy Only, the object was not to simply re-present this bought material, but to create an original piece using non-original material. As such, the original material has been substantially transformed, through processes such as imitation, juxtaposition, super-position, fracture, and de-construction. The work plays on the copy versus the original, appropriation versus creation, and real versus fake, to make a saleable object, a performance. The title refers to a shop model, an exhibited facsimile of a real object - but not the sellable object itself.

*Choreopraphers, architects: Pierre Blondel, Isabelle Dekeyser, Odile Duboc, Frédéric Flamand, Jean‑Claude Gallotta, Lhoas et Lhoas, Russel Maliphant, Steve Paxton, Fabrice Ramalingom, Rudy Ricciotti, Philippe Saire, Thierry Smits, Marie-Clara Villalobos ural processes into the work, an ongoing theme of her recent work.




CONTACT CCNFCB :
Edwige Dousset - Production and Tour Manager


E-Mail : e.dousset@ccnfc-belfort.org
Tél. : + 33 (0)3 84 58 45 30 / + 33 (0)6 72 70 27 69