Motivatie keuze: Bruno Listopad

My motivation for choosing Relâche, it is due to its self-referential approach that questioned the limits of its medium and its attempt to shake up the accepted conventions of what was than considered to be choreography.  Relâche attacked common sense, the pretentiousness of intellectualism and art as an object of commodity. Its intensity was the outcome of a synthesis of diverse mediums and performing triggers that generated a hypnotizing kaleidoscopic experience while breaking the so-called “fourth-wall”. Through spontaneity, playfulness and the burlesque Picabia not only aspired to achieve the 'sensation of the new, of pleasure, the sensation of forgetting that one has to “reflect” and “know” in order to like something' but also to do violence to bourgeoisie dormant conformity. 

Although Relâche is considered to be historically relevant by its innovation --since was the first choreography that introduced the cinematic dimension into ballet-- the relevant implications that Relâche radicalism had upon the development of choreography till today are often unmentioned. In my perception some contemporary artists share a similar spirit of transgression. Through these they aim to counteract molar inscriptions that force these to strive for a compromise between artistic integrity and commercial success. Through alliances with diverse disciplines these makers attempt to resist the pressure to reproduce canonic self-representations that are easily acceptable and marketable.

By covering Relâche, I wish to bring into presence an often forgotten choreographic avant-garde and to homage its subversive effort to shift existing paradigms of how choreography was conceptualized, produced and experienced. Last but not least, I also wish to use this opportunity to contextualize historically my practice that also has been enquiring the limits of the medium, the friction of high and popular culture, kitsch, nonsense and the political implications of the spectacle in “the society of the spectacle”.