Press Release: Boris Charmatz - Sadlers Wells and Tate Modern present Musée de la danse in London

[Jan McNulty]

Boris Charmatz / Musée de la danse
manger and Aatt enen tionon
Sunday 17, Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 May 
Performances at 7.30pm
Sadler’s Wells, EC1R 
Tickets: £15 - £20
Ticket office: 0844 412 4300 or www.sadlerswells.com

In a major collaboration Sadler’s Wells and Tate Modern present Musée de la danse in London from Friday 15 – Wednesday 20 May, an unprecedented series of performances, installations and provocations by French choreographer and dancer Boris Charmatz. As part of an important new focus on the work of Charmatz, Sadler’s Wells presents two works: the London premiere of Aatt enen tionon on Sunday 17 May and the UK premiere of manger on Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 May. Also part of Musée de la danse in London are Charmatz’s activities at Tate Modern on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 May. 

Charmatz has been director of the ground-breaking National Choreographic Centre in Rennes since 2009, which he provocatively renamed Musée de la danse, reframing the traditional dance organisation as a new kind of museum. Thisdancing museum, what Charmatz refers to as “a culture which largely remains to be invented”, opens up the boundaries of what is considered choreography and dance and looks to creating new physical spaces and situations to redefine them.

Following Charmatz’s debut at Sadler’s Wells in 2014 with the thought-provoking piece enfant, the theatre now breaks its boundary between stage and spectator in order to fully showcase the nature of Charmatz’s combination of dance, installation and performance art. This re-thinking of the traditional performance space of the Sadler’s Wells theatre sees an intimate audience of approximately 200 people invited onto the main stage to be a part of Aatt enen tionon and manger.  

Alistair Spalding, Sadler’s Wells Artistic Director and Chief Executive said: “Boris Charmatz is one of the most radical and important dance artists working today and our collaboration with Tate Modern enables him to present his work to the London audience in a truly unique way, in both theatrical and gallery settings. We have re-worked our theatre’s usual performance space in response to the artistic needs of his work and are excited to be challenging the possibilities of how dance is experienced.”

Created in 1996, Aatt enen tionon (Sunday 17 May) takes place within a structure built like a tower on three levels and invites the audience to examine dance from top to bottom. These seemingly impossible conditions question the existing structure of dance as performance. One solitary half-nude dancer occupies each of the three levels as the audience moves around the structure, viewing the piece from different points, near or far. Closer to an art installation than a traditional dance piece, Aatt enen tionon explores what Charmatz terms “strict disorder”, and how one can be full of life but isolated and solitary. 

In his new work manger (Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 May) Charmatz examines and challenges the role that the mouth and eating play in choreography, dance and performance. The piece, performed in two manifestations between Tate Modern and Sadler’s Wells, sees dancers’ bodies set in motion with the mouth. The mouth is figured as the point where food, voices, breath and words meet, acting as a space where the self and the other engage with and ingest each other. Charmatz uses this metaphor as the vehicle for his choreography. Standing at the boundaries between a mobile installation and a performance piece, manger offers its audience what Charmatz terms a “swallowed reality”: a slow digestion of the world. 

Boris Charmatz said, about Musee de la danse: “I want to modify both preconceived ideas about museums and one’s ideas about dance. Dance and its actors are often defined in opposition to the arts that are said to be perennial, lasting, static, for which the museum would be the favourite place; but a museum can be alive and inhabited as much as a theatre and offer a contact with dance that can be at the same time practical, aesthetic and spectacular.” 

The Sadler’s Wells focus on Boris Charmatz continues with his performance in the UK premiere of Partita 2, a work by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, performed by Charmatz, De Keersmaeker and violinist Amandine Beyer on Friday 22 and Saturday 23 May. This Rosas production sees De Keersmaeker depart from her usual meticulous construction of dance, embracing the improvisatory instincts and whimsical flair of Charmatz. 

Before Charmatz’s performances at Sadler’s Wells, Musée de la danse will take over Tate Modern for a special weekend (Friday 15-Saturday 16 May) with If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse?, a series of events and performances part of the BMW Tate Live. More than inviting dance into the museum, the weekend is a chance to consider how the museum could be transformed by dance altogether. The activities at Tate Modern include a dispersed version of Charmatz’s manger, prior to its full UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells.


Pre-show Director’s Conversation with Boris Charmatz on Wednesday 20 May at 6pm in the Lilian Baylis Studio (£4)  

Musée de la danse in London is presented by Sadler’s Wells and Tate Modern. 

For more information about Musée de la danse, please visit www.museedeladanse.org


Notes to editors:

About Sadler’s Wells
Sadler's Wells is a world leader in contemporary dance, committed to producing, commissioning and presenting new works and to bringing the very best international and UK dance to London and worldwide audiences. Under the Artistic Directorship of Alistair Spalding the theatre’s acclaimed year-round programme spans dance of every kind, from contemporary to flamenco, Bollywood to ballet, salsa to street dance and tango to tap. Since 2005 it has helped to bring over 90 new dance works to the stage and its international award-winning commissions and collaborative productions regularly tour the world. Sadler’s Wells supports 16 appointed world class Associate Artists, three Resident Companies and an Associate Company and nurtures the next generation of talent through its National Youth Dance Company, Summer University programme, Wild Card initiative and its New Wave Associates.

Located in Islington in north London, the current theatre is the sixth to have stood on the site since it was first built by Richard Sadler in 1683. The venue has played an illustrious role in the history of theatre ever since, with The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Opera all having started at Sadler’s Wells.

Sadler’s Wells is an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation and currently receives approximately 9% of its revenue from Arts Council England.

About BMW Tate Live
BMW Tate Live is a long-term partnership between BMW and Tate that features innovative live performances and events including live web broadcast, in-gallery performance, seminars and workshops. BMW Tate Live aims to reach an international audience through new forms of art, addressing audiences changing needs, tastes and interests in art. The initiative creates a new space for collaboration and a programme that encompasses performance, film, sound, installation and learning – areas where artists can take greater risks and experiment freely. The programme investigates transformation in all its guises and aims to provoke debate on how art can affect intellectual, social and physical change. More information at www.tate.org.uk/bmwtatelive