Xavier Le Roy in dialogue: What transmits

Xavier Le Roy in ‘Self-Unfinished’. Photo by Katrin Schoof.

As Jérôme Bel, the mischievous French dancer and choreographer, once said: “The body is not the sanctuary of truth, authenticity or uniqueness. It is deeply subjugated to culture, politics and history.” So what are the forces and mechanisms that choreograph subjection, mobilisation and wonder?

Join us for the second in our Saturday afternoon trilogy of salon discussions with acclaimed French dancer and choreographer Xavier Le Roy, co-presented by Dancehouse, that aim to link dance and choreography to current issues in arts and society, highlighting the connections between the thinking and moving body and contemporary aesthetic, cultural and political issues. Inspired by Joseph Beuys’s reflection on the artist as a social sculptor via movement, action and thought, today’s line-up of local artists—helmed by facilitator (and philosopher) Philipa Rothfield, and including performance artist Jill Orr, dancer Scarlet Yu, art historian Jeanette Hoorn and dancer Prue Lang—will join Xavier in investigating the social mirror that is today’s dancing body. How is it permeated, deliberately or not, by the socio-political? Dance comes from nothing and leaves no material trace, so what does a form so concerned with impermanence have to show us more broadly: socially, culturally and politically?

This event is part of XAVIER LE ROY_IN PUBLIC, a two-week program of performances, conversations, events and encounters as part of CREATIVE DIALOGUES, a joint initiative of the French Embassy in Australia; MPavilion; the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne; and ACMI, led by Dancehouse, Melbourne—with special thanks to Kaldor Public Art Projects and Carriageworks, Sydney.