Presentation

The Dance First Think Later project began in 2020 as an exhibition with a broad performative dimension, organised by Arta Sperto at Le Commun and in other cultural venues in Geneva. It piqued the curiosity and interest of several audiences, thanks to its combination of dance, performance, and visual arts.

It bounced back in 2022 at Le Commun and Pavillon ADC, consolidating its transdisciplinary singularity and identity. Now established as a biennial event, Dance First Think Later will present its 3rd edition from 10 October to 10 November 2024. It continues to explore the field of dance in a broad sense, from various perspectives including dance, performance, video, sculpture, and drawing. The works selected offer aesthetic and sensory experiences, while addressing anatomical, ritual, political, identity, scientific, memorial, territorial, climatic, and therapeutic issues. The body, its gestures and movements, are at the centre of human and societal, individual and collective concerns.

The visual arts and the performing arts have a lot in common artistically, but they operate very differently in terms of production, scheduling, budget, and distribution. A sculpture is tangible, durable (usually), and requires dedicated transport and storage. Dance is immaterial and ephemeral, and in principle cannot be collected. “The dance museum is the dancer’s body” (Boris Charmatz).

With Dance First Think Later, Arta Sperto offers a hybrid event, part exhibition, part festival, which juggles the respective characteristics of the works, their duration, and their spatial and technical requirements. With this in mind, part of the exhibition will change from day to day.

The programme will bring together some twenty artists, duos or collectives, from ten different countries and several generations (from 26 to 88 years old) from the fields of dance, performance, contemporary art, and the moving image, or from several of these areas. All have practised movement in different kinds of contexts, including exhibition spaces. Arta Sperto seeks this proximity between performers and audiences to encourage a privileged relationship with the works. The event will feature a large-scale installation, six video works, 13 performances representing 25 live events, a workshop-colloquium with eight lecturers, and a film evening. Three of the performances will involve more than 50 performers, while several videos will explore the relationship between body and architecture.

The central venue for Dance First Think Later is Le Commun. One of the large halls will be dedicated to an installation by Cynthia Lefebvre, which will be activated for three days by performances, and as a counterpoint, to a video projection by Padmini Chettur. The two smaller rooms will be used for alternating video projections, respectively by Eszter Salamon and Carole Douillard & Babette Mangolte on a white wall, and by Boris Charmatz & César Vayssié and Gerard & Kelly on a screen. These four films feature bodies in motion in striking architectural settings. The other large hall will be devoted to a series of performances over four weeks: one by Juliette Uzor in her installation, a programme with Alina Arshi, Tamar Kisch, and Tyra Wigg, the latest creations by DD Dorvillier and Ola Maciejewska respectively, the Geneva premiere of a collective performance by Jérôme Leuba, and an evolving project by Ruth Childs & Cécile Bouffard.

A selection of scores from the performances will be presented in a modular set-up. These visual elements (drawings, diagrams, photos, texts, notes, etc.), which are rarely shown in theatres and festivals, will enable visitors to delve into the artists’ creative processes, providing additional elements to better understand their work.
One of ADC’s studios at Maison des arts du Grütli will be the setting for a performance by Emily Mast, involving a musician and six dancers specially trained for the Geneva iteration of the piece. Marie-Caroline Hominal will also be presenting an installation of two video projections and a new performance.
At Cinémas du Grütli, two short films by Pascal Greco, shot at the Musée d’art et d’histoire, will be screened, followed by a round-table discussion bringing together key players in the project.
At Maison Saint-Gervais, the La Tierce collective will focus on the 7th floor as the main character for its proposal.
And Marco Berrettini, with Alice Gervais-Ragu, will offer a research
project in the form of a workshop/colloquium, with the help of eight lecturers active in different fields of the arts and sciences.

A project that has been integrated into the programme will be presented later, in February 2025. This will be a performance by Joan Jonas, which will be the subject of rehearsals and a workshop with around 15 HEAD students supervised by movement director Nefeli Skarmea, culminating in two public presentations at Le Cube.