"Shoes as traces of experience in De Keersmaeker’s work"
Résumé
Whatever the style – athletic or casual, wide or lightweight, monochrome or multicoloured – shoes have always plaid a visible and audible role in Anne Teresa De Keermaeker’s choreographies, even when they are taken off. In Fase (1982), the spreading of some movements – walking, jumping, spinning around – and the final pattern of a rose on the sandy floor are allowed by the white sneakers (sort of hospital shoes). Later on in The Song (2009), the manipulation of the smart shoes by a bruiteuse generates soft sounds which match with the deployment of the choreography throught a quite clear and silent space. In Cesena (2011), a piece premiered in the Palais des Papes (Avignon), whose dramaturgy evokes the violent history of European 14th century, multicoloured skneakers’ materiality is closely involved both in the group walkings in the dark and in the jumping dance in the dawn. Starting from two questions – what is transmitted through dance ?, how dance materialize and re-materialize in different contexts ? –, and based on the concept of imprint (empreinte) as something in motion in the present (Nancy, Schérer), we consider that as visible and audible artifacts shoes can bring on stage some traces of our motions and experiences in the public spaces. As a continual element of De Keersmaeker’s practice of dramaturgy (Danan, Georgelou et al.), shoes probably help us to highlight the link between history and collective motion in her choreographies.