Between Body-Memory and Body-Present: Re/Activating Choreography

The SNSF research project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge is delighted to present an online lecture by Joanna Lesnierowska, who works as a choreographer and a visual dramaturge as well as a member of the research project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge. The event will take place within the research seminar series convened by the research division Contemporary Art and Media at the Institute Materiality in Art and Culture, HKB Bern.

In my theory of the ‘in-between-two-bodies’, the body itself is a complex form,
consisting of a body-being-present and a body-memory, each of which has
another two levels: that of ‘calling out’ (appel) and that of ‘recalling’ (rappel).
Sibony 1995, p.89-90

What does it mean to bring a performance, a choreography, or a gesture by a previously unknown but brilliant choreographer from the past into the present? What does it mean to reconstruct a performance and is it possible at all within such an ephemeral form? Can activation be deployed as an alternative to reconstruction? But what if reactivation, reconstruction, or even restoration of an oeuvre becomes impossible due to the scarcity of source materials such as recordings, photographic archives, and testimonies, written or oral? Can a past choreography or performance live on in contemporary practices as a product of recycling and upcycling, and what do those strategies mean within the choreographic practice?

In this talk, "Between Body-Memory and Body-Present: Re/Activating Choreography," Joanna Leśnierowska, who works as a choreographer and a visual dramaturg as well as a member of the research project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge, will share insights from her research on the Polish avant-garde choreographer Yanka Rudzka (1916-2008).

Leśnierowska encountered Rudzka’s oeuvre while visiting Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, in 2013 and has been engaged in reflecting on her work and impact on contemporary practice ever since. The themes of Leśnierowska’s presentation will span a field as wide as dance archaeology, revisitation of choreographic gestures, the transmission of knowledge in dance, and the challenges of the sheer lack of materials, as she encountered with Rudzka. These insights will be enhanced by Leśnierowska’s account of her experience with a reactivation of her own choreography to be premiered in August at the opening of the Cracow Dance Festival. Leśnierowska argues that, according to the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Daniel Sibony, these reactivations and revisitations take place in dialogue between two bodies: “Body-Memory” and “Body-Present.” In fact, they constitute an integral part of every creative process.

Join us for this online talk followed by a public conversation with renowned expert Joanna Lesnierowska, as we delve into cutting-edge artistic research and practice.

The event is free, but you will need to register to attend.

Image above: Yanka Rudzka with students. Photograph by Silvio Robatto. Courtesy Joanna Lesnierowska.

Image below: The Yanka Rudzka Project. Leavening. Photograph: Mallu Silva. Courtesy Joanna Lesnierowska.