This Side Up

Alexandra Bachzetsis’ work (CH/GR, 1974; CH, 1975, based in Zurich) puts the body on stage and at stake, using it as an artistic and critical tool, a site of transformation and experiment, and a mode of communication.

The video installation This Side Up explores the spatiality of how movement is taught, recorded and notated. Movement notation has often used symbols borrowed from music notation – “Labanotation”, developed in 1928 by choreographer and former architect Rudolph von Laban, was the first method of notation devised with performers, rather than the audience, in mind. The shapes of the symbols indicate not only the body part and the extent and timing of the movement, but also nine different directions in space. The video piece is accompanied by a poster by graphic designer Julia Born, a regular collaborator with Bachetzsis.