The Work of Dance in the Age of Sacred Lives
Premiered in November 2013 in the framework of the festival-conference “Tanz über Gräben (Dance over Trenches). 100 Years of Le Sacre du Printemps” at the HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin that marked the 100th aniversary of “Le Sacre du Printemps,” the legendary choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, set to music by Igor Stravinsky.
In this collaboration between choreographer Netta Yerushalmy and philosopher David Kishik, the former dances while the latter delivers a paper. The movement clashes the sensibilities of primitivism with minimalism, as Yerushalmy cuts the specificities of Sacre’s original choreography and pastes them into this contemporary composition. Biopolitics, with its strong sacrificial undertones, its fixation on the body and bare life, stands at the center of Kishik’s essay. This is the context in which Nijinsky’s work achieves its paradigmatic role, on the threshold between classicism and modernism.
Choreographic concept and performance by Netta Yerushalmy
Essay reading by David Kishik
Costume by Magdalena Jarkowiec
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Netta Yerushalmy‘s work is regularly presented in NYC and commissioned by companies throughout the US. She received prestigious fellowships from foundations such as Bogliasco, Guggenheim, NYFA, and Six Points, and has been Artist-in Residence at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, the Institute for Cultural Inquiry Berlin among others. She is presently creating her second commission for Zenon and will be creating a new work at the American Dance Festival this summer. Netta works with choreographer Joanna Kotze and has performed with Doug Varone & Dancers (‘07-’12), Nancy Bannon, Karinne Keithley, Mark Jarecki, and the Metropolitan Opera.
David Kishik is assistant professor of philosophy at Emerson College. He is the author of Wittgenstein’s Form of Life (Continuum, 2008), and The Power of Life: Agamben and the Coming Politics (Stanford University Press, 2011). He is also the translator of two of Agamben’s essay collections. His third book, an imaginary sequel to Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project, set in New York, capital of the twentieth century, is pretty much done.
Documentation here.
