From A to B via C
Alexandra Bachzetsis (Switzerland)
Swiss choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis has been exploring the various provinces and domains of ‘mainstream’ popular culture – hip-hop, fashion, strip-tease, movies – and extracted the signature vignettes and ensemble pieces from it that have come to define her choreographic, performative practice.
Inspired by Diego Velázquez’s seminal rendition of Venus at her Mirror (1599-1600), From A to B via C opens with three bodies moving from and towards each other, acting as each other’s mirror image – mediated and unsynchronized. Complex scenes of nudity, gazing and instructional scores reflect on our common desire to communicate our own identity through the identities of others.
Choreographer: Alexandra Bachzetsis
Dancers: Alexandra Bachzetsis, Anne Pajunen and Gabriel Schenker
Research Curator: Hendrik Folkerts
Costume Design: Cosima Gadient
Sound Design: Tobias Koch and Dan Solbach
“In her new work, the Swiss choreographer turns the stage into a training and instruction room … where the levels shift as constantly as the linguistic forms.” – Der Sonntag (Vienna)
60 minutes
Performances:
Jan 11 – 5pm SOLD OUT
Wait list for 5pm – click here
Jan 14 – 7pm
Media Installation:
Jan 12-13 – 12-6pm
Swiss Institute / CONTEMPORARY ART
18 Wooster St, Manhattan
FREE; Reservations Recommended
Alexandra Bachzetsis is an artist, performer and choreographer based in Basel and Zurich. Her professional background includes a wide range of disciplines: theatre, dance and visual arts. She studied and graduated at the Zürcher Kunstgymnasium (CH), the Dimitrischule in
Verscio (CH) and the Performance Education Program at the STUK arts centre in
Leuven (BE). She then continued to post-graduate level at Das Arts, the Advanced Research in Theatre and
Dance Studies centre in Amsterdam (NL). During her training years, she began to work as a dancer in contemporary dance and performance
context, collaborating among others with Sasha Waltz & Guests in Berlin (D) and
with Les Ballets C. de la B. in Gent (BE), where she worked with Christine De Smedt and Koen Augustijnen. Since 2001, she has been working independently, producing and presenting her own work in theaters and contemporary art venues.
Her work constitutes an inquiry into genres of performing arts, techniques of choreography and forms of scenic behavior. Bachzetsis’ main interest lies in codes that govern gestures, both in everyday life and on stage. Her choreography scrutinises the mutual influence between the use of gesture and movement in the ‘low’, ‘commercial’ genres – such as romantic comedy, TV soap, or hip-hop video-clip – and in ‘arts’, such as ballet, modern dance and performance. Bachzetsis arrives at new ideas in dance performance inducing a productive crossing and translation between the hitherto isolated or even mutually exclusive cultural fields. In her performances, Bachzetsis takes on stereotyped modes of representation of female body in contemporary popular culture, show business and sex industry. She diverts clichés of commodified femininity and idolized masculinity to use them as building blocks in a new, consistent formal language that becomes tool of self-reflection and means to empowerment.
Founded in 1986, Swiss Institute (SI) is one of New York’s key non-profit institutions for contemporary art. Open to the public free of charge, it provides a significant forum for contemporary cultural dialogue between Europe and the United States. Swiss Institute produces four exhibitions per year along with a series of public programs including lectures, performances, and screenings. Recent highlights include solo or duo exhibitions of emerging artists including Allyson Vieira, Pamela Rosenkranz, Nikolas Gambaroff, and Nicolas Party; shows presenting specific bodies of work by celebrated artists such as John Armleder and Roman Signer; as well as rediscoveries of overlooked figures including Karlheinz Weinberger and Heidi Bucher. Swiss Institute’s artistic program is supported by institutional and corporate sponsors as well as the generosity of individuals.
The Swiss Institute is located in the downtown Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo, which in recent history came to the public’s attention for being the location of many artists’ lofts and art galleries, but is now more noted for its variety of shops ranging from trendy upscale boutiques to national and international chain store outlets.
From A to B via C was commissioned and developed in collaboration with Tate Modern, London, Biennale of Moving Images, Geneva and Fundatión Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City. Co-produced with Kaserne Basel and Theaterhaus Gessnerallee, Zürich. Swiss Institute programming is made possible with public funds from Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council. PS122 presentation support provided by Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance and Jerome Robbins Foundation.