‘The aspect of transition creates a vocabulary of yearning rooted in the historical romantic movement’ quote from ‘Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism In Contemporary Art…In everyday language, the term is generally used in a reduced sense meaning sentimental, far from civilization, full of atmosphere, rapturous, picturesque. This use has only little to do with the actual movement’s complex character.’- from e-flux online journal
Generating ideas on Romanticism as an agent or power agent, admiring the beauty in classical imagery. I have been looking at representations of statues from still photographs of dancers, dancers working with stillness and actual statues.
V&A Friday Late session ‘Snap’. The night was focused on the extent to which we capture our lives on camera. ‘Our lives are a catalogue- whether in feeds or in photo albums, we capture and curate our worlds through the amassing and sharing of pictures.’ This event coincided with the opening of the Photography Centre and explores how we create, collect and preserve moments.
One of the live performances on the night stayed with me.
‘Untitled’ choreographed by Geni Lou Elie-Anne Ross (@geni_lou, genilou.com) and Frederique. “PAX” Dumas. Programmed in partnership with WOMAN SRSLY.
‘A 10 minute performance exploring perfection and deformation through popping. Three dancers stand as pieces of art- elegant, poised objects of admiration. Under your gaze, they gradually morph into awkward, trembling, deformed versions of themselves.’ Here is a shot recording from my mobile phone to briefly illustrate the ensemble of music and the awkward positioning and restraints the performers were under.