162 dance meetings

The young choreographer Aria Boumpaki positions her art at the intersection of the artistic and the everyday: she seeks movement forms related less to virtuosity and rules of expression than to the “democratic nature of dance” and audience activation. This anthropological and, in a way, sociological take on the dance process re-foregrounds the vital conversation between society and art. Relationships and experiences acquire new meanings in a reformulation of the art product, reminding us that the structure of the social space in which our everyday unfolds is ultimately the same structure in which the artist positions him/herself.

“162 dance meetings” functions as a movement experiment which involves the audience in collaborative research: 81 different bodies co-create the “work” through personal encounters with the choreographer. If specialization and the fragmentation of creative production have alienated dance from the everyday, then the choreographer attempts to reverse the process by readdressing the “dance dynamic” of social life. However, this isn’t just another show focused on the spontaneous and unmediated nature of human artistic expression. Rather, it sets out to forge a unique artistic partnership between individual audience members and the choreographer which will allow the perception of the performative condition to be revisited or pass by unnoticed. There is nothing pre-planned in this partnership, which is to say the focus is firmly on the multiplicity of the relationships that can emerge and be expressed beyond the distinction between dancer and viewer. Essentially a “dance happening”, the production focuses on the ‘where’ and ‘when’ of the process in order to highlight unexplored aspects of art’s communicative dimension.