Liz Magic Laser Handle / Poignée
Colourful instructional video for ‘political’ dance therapy, analysing the relationships between liberals and conservatives. w/ Performatik
Handle / Poignée presents a political framework as a means of analysing and repairing the relationships between liberals and conservatives. For this carefully filmed dance performance/installation with a clearly Bauhaus-influenced aesthetic, Laser takes the lead from linguist George Lakoff. In his book Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (1996), Lakoff uses a family model to describe the dynamics between politicians and citizens. The family model consists of four archetypes: the disciplinary parent, the caring parent, the obedient child and the rebellious child. The ‘instructional video’ guides viewers through four sequences of therapeutic movements, each empowering one of the four specific personality types.
The video and performance were workshopped with dance therapists. The striking costumes were designed by conceptual clothing and accessories label Slow and Steady Wins the Race, famous for their research into the basic elements of what we wear.
Part of NORMAL SCHNORMAL, a multidisciplinary programme on normality and other deviations.
FR, 2018, 14’
No language, starts every 15'
Commissioned by Centre Pompidou, Paris, for MOVE 2018 Exhibition of Dance, Performance, Moving Image. Courtesy Various Small Fires, Los Angeles and Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam.
With dancers Lise Benoit, Carisa Bledsoe, Yun-Chen Chang, Célia Chauviere, Fabiana Gabanini and Martina Musilova
Developed through a process that included workshops with dance therapists, Mandoline Whittlesey and France Schott Billmann, and choreographic consulting by Cori Kresge
Costumes by Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Intertitle text derived from the words of Mandoline Whittlesey
Director of Photography: Spencer Wolff
Motion Graphic Design: Common Space Studio
Editors: Grace Kline
Liz Magic Laser
Albert Tholen
Second Camera: Lucas Khamvongsa
Audio Engineer: Aïna Canivet
Sound Design: Matthew Patterson Curry
Gaffer: Jérémy Tagbor
Design Assistant: Jenna Chi
Translator: Magali Mel
Onsite tailor: Isma Mecheri
Set and costumes produced with generous support from Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette, Paris.
Handle / Poignée is co-produced with the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Gulbenkian Foundation, Paris, and the Confort Moderne, Poitiers. Developed in partnership with ACTS and Micadanses. Project produced on the occasion of Talismans, Le désert entre nous n'est que du sable, Gulbenkian Foundation Paris, and circulating to the Confort Moderne, Poitiers in October 2018.
Special thanks to Sarina Basta, Caroline Ferreira, François Quintin, Dirk Meylaerts, Lisa Audureau,
Aude Mohammedi Merquiol, Mary Ping, Alice Pialoux, Jon Santos, Becca Albee, Joan Dupont, Sanya Kantarovsky, Wendy Osserman, Ken Laser, Miguel Magalhaes, Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, Helena Freitas, Yann Chevallier, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, Blandine Houtekins, Jean-Michel Rousseau, Jocelyn Moisson, Caroline Renoux, Catherine Dorat, L’EESI, Patric Clanet, Sandrine Reyberat,
Barbara Benedetti, Damien Saada, Colin Péguillan, Pierre-Philippe Toufekchan and Raul Zbengheci
