“If caa.reviews were performance.reviews?” Main Menu Introduction: “If caa.reviews were performance.reviews?” This jointly authored review of Boris Charmatz’s If Tate Modern Was Musée de la Danse? (2015) inaugurates a new initiative, spearheaded by the editorial board of caa.reviews, to review time-based media. The increasing prominence of dance, performance, video, film, and sound works in museum and gallery exhibitions gives caa.reviews an opportunity not simply to broaden the journal’s scope, but also to bring a range of diverse perspectives to bear on this growing phenomenon. By inviting scholars of dance to write this review, we hope to show how caa.reviews can become a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue on artworks and institutions of interest to members of distinct but related scholarly and creative communities. In the spirit of Charmatz, we ask, “what if caa.reviews were performance.reviews?” Unauthorized Performance in the Turbine Hall Museum Metaphysics: 20 Dancers for the XX Century and Dance’s Ontology in the Museum Adrénaline: A Dance Floor for Everyone and expo zéro Credits

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Public warm-up with Boris Charmatz

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

A bra-le-corps

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Levee des conflits (solos, visitor’s version)

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Adrenaline: a dance floor for everyone

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Adrénaline: A Dance Floor for Everyone, an open disco hour reminiscent of a pop-up dance club, emerged twice a day at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, under a shimmering giant disco ball. Led by the enticing sets of DJ Oneman and DJ Jonjo Jury, respectively, this event was undoubtedly democratic and welcoming, fulfilling the premise of a communal celebration of the act of dancing. (I write about Saturday, May 16, 2015, which featured DJ Oneman during the first Adrénaline hour [5:15 pm–6:15 pm] and DJ Jonjo Jury [6:45 pm–8:15 pm] at the second, longer section of it. On May 15, the same timetable also featured DJ Oneman’s hour first, but the later slot was DJ Nathan G. Wilkins’s set.) As arguably the least structured part of the program, it also functioned as a moment of respite for all participants, and as a reset opportunity in the midst of a variety of choreographed inter/activities.

Having participated in one day-cycle of the weekend event, and having exchanged impressions with friends in attendance, I came to the conclusion that one’s perception of If Tate Modern Was Musée de la Danse? was contingent upon one’s participation in Adrénaline. Those who stayed felt more positively toward the entire event than those who did not. In some sense, then, Adrénaline was the glue that could amalgamate the heterogeneous events programmed by Boris Charmatz. Yet, the notion of Adrénaline as a coagulator seems inherently alien to the porous nature of this dancing interval. A dialectic emerged from the ambiguity of Adrénaline’s nature as a “non-event” relative to the choreographically induced act of dancing.

Sandwiched in between performances of clearly recognizable choreographic works, Adrénaline as an hour of “just dancing” interrupted the flow of Charmatz’s more conceptual, cerebral dances. Its in-between position suggested that it functioned as an interlude, maybe even a filler, that facilitated preparations of the “real” performances. Repeated twice, Adrénaline therefore provided welcome slip-outs and meal escapes for many a committed visitor entrenched at the Tate for the weekend. This is probably why some visitors missed it altogether.

For those of us who stayed, here was an event in which to immerse oneself without being asked to view anything, understand anything, or learn anything. There was no need to move over or to back away from the invisible stanchions that triggered alarms as people clustered to watch performances of Twenty Dances for the XX Century. Such “breather” moments were important, because the full day supplied viewers with both sublime and faintly annoying experiences. One would bump into attendants asking visitors to clear out of an area as it was time for the next “stage” set up; a theater shusher or two occasionally attempted to maintain orderly conduct in the gallery rooms. During Adrénaline, however, at last no one felt inadequate, or in anyone else’s way; there was no discrepancy between the cultures of museum-going and theater attendance, no need to behave in a particular manner, no pressure to conform to conventions of viewing.

A possibility to inhabit the museum-as-social-dance-floor thus became an enticing catalyst, for more than just busting some moves. This freedom was perhaps the best part of Adrénaline: the suspension of “art” and artfulness opened a myriad of beautiful impulses to shake, sway, and occasionally spin. In that free space, some new dancers for the twenty-first century, borrowing here the title of Charmatz’s Tate event, revealed themselves. Though in some ways Adrénaline’s free-for-all functioned as a foil for the display of professional dancers in the choreographed works in If Tate Modern Was Musée de la Danse?, it also became a platform for some awesome dancers whose performances emerged organically. An unforgettable dance by a pre-teen b-boy dazzled us all; his smooth floating, cwalking, and gliding were made even dreamier by the dotted moonlight effect of the gigantic disco ball.

In spite of Adrénaline’s apparent simplicity, close examination reveals its conceptual aspects. The disco ball clearly marked the Turbine Hall as a dance “stage.” The ball—present throughout the day, but only functional during Adrénaline—offered a visualization of the overarching question, “If Tate Modern was Musée de la Danse?” It was a striking symbol of the blurring between the two art worlds. Moreover, this magnified disco ball belonged to both traditions equally. It was a mobile, that is to say, a modern sculpture; it was also a choreographic object, a performative artifact that prompts and inspires, an invitation to dance, an extended hand.

Interjecting itself somewhat surreptitiously into a larger exchange between dance and art, Adrénaline thus contributed to the investigation of the title question of Charmatz’s work. It served as an embodied think tank, a place to freestyle and experiment. It is in this sense that it became a distant kin, or the other side of a coin, to expo zéro, an event more explicitly envisioned by Charmatz as an exploratory site of proposals for a museum of dance.

Roman Photo

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Title here

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Title Here

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Title Here

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Title Here

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Title Here

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Title Here

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Title Here

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).

Manger

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the way in which dance might inhabit the museum or cohabitate with works of plastic art. The project uses the museum context to reimagine what dance might be. Charmatz’s approach—his acceptance of experience and memory as part of these twentieth-century dances, rather than strict adherence to set choreography—poses a challenge to the typical paradigm of dance presentation and performance. Dance is often theorized through a type-token framework: the type, or choreography, is an enduring dancework that can be re-performed, while dance is the token, the individual, fleeting performance of a type (see Graham McFee’s The Philosophical Aesthetics of Dance: Identity, Performance, and Understanding [Binsted, Hampshire, UK: Dance Books, 2011] for a detailed analysis of the type-token framework).