A Choreographed Exhibition

A Choreographed Exhibition consists solely of movements. It showcases works choreographed for the exhibition by international artists, choreographers and musicians. Over the space of one month, three dancers will take over the museum’s various exhibition halls and perform choreographies of gestures, figures and displacements following written instructions and scores.

In the absence of any backdrops, sets, dramatic lighting and music, the movements "echo" in the otherwise empty galleries of CA2M, where the dancers are the sole focus of attention. The only bookends to the performances are the art centre’s opening hours and the duration of the exhibition. The gestures and movements, chained together in an endless continuum, become like floating, abstract forms that unfold and drift through the space.

The relationship with the spectator is profoundly altered, shifting from that of a person who moves around a series of artworks to one in which the artworks move around the visitors and carry them along with their energy and drive. The disturbing proximity of the dancers and their often unpredictable displacements also force the spectator to move and to keep changing position.

This exhibition by Mathieu Copeland takes shapes and evolves over time and only leaves traces in the memory, because once it is over all that remains is the memory of the performed gestures.