manifesto         What would a history of Improvised Dance look like?

London, 2018                              Can we document improvisation without killing it?

 

manifesto was an improvised dance performance looking for its place in dance history.

manifesto was a dance that became a book

The title of the book is Blue-Purple, Purple-Blue

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“The improvised is that which eludes history” explains Susan Leigh Foster in Taken by Surprise. And that is because improvisation is a negotiation with the unknown, while history only keeps track of what is known. Improvised dance however, manages to bring the two (known-unknown) into a very intimate dialogue. It is where the body and all that it carries meets the unlimited possibilities offered by the absence of choreography.

 

So, Foster goes on to ask – and I wonder with her: “What would a history of improvised dance look like?”

 

Blue-Purple, Purple-Blue is an attempt to explore where improvised dance’s place is in dance history. What is of most importance for this project is to maintain the open-endedness and unpredictability of improvisation, as it probably is the main element of a performance of this sort -to keep the unknown unknown.

For that, Blue-Purple, Purple-Blue is full of gaps (special and of meaning) which will -hopefully- require of the reader (or performer in the case of recreation) to improvise; that is, to figure things out, make decisions, feel, imagine, choreograph and execute simultaneously.

 

It is a book that begs for interaction.

 

It is a documentation of an improvised dance performance titled MANIFESTO that took place on Friday 16th February 2018.

 

It is also just a score.

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you can click on the pictures to discover more

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