Holding one's body or someone elses. L'Entree des Artistes: EG|PC and Rodin in Paris.

I visited Paris for a few days in December to see [Purgatorio] Popopera and [Purgatorio] In Visione at the Théâtre de la Ville. EG|PC's work did very well, with the attentive and strong-minded audiences that the Théâtre de la Ville always seems to be able to bring together. I also visited two beautiful exhibitions, Picasso et ses Maîtres at the Grand Palais and Freud et Rodin - collectionneurs at the Musée Rodin.
Intriguing connections were building up in my head between the work of Emio and Pieter, Picasso's lifelong reworking of the work of others and Rodin collecting antique statuettes while rewriting physicality in his own way. It all seemed to come together in some of the Rilke quotes, that were scattered around in the exhibit at the Musée Rodin.

Holding one's body or someone else's. Emio and Pieter read a lot of Rilke when they started to collaborate. L'Entrée des Artistes is the name of the bar next door from our apartment. It has a startlingly relaxed clientele I hadn't come across in Paris before. As if the customers consciously resisted the cliché Paris body: neutral, arrogant, closed - something you have to get used to from the moment you enter the subway. Not look anyone in the eyes, whatever happens. I mock it, but I loose most times.

When I have read a bit more in Rilke, I hope to come back to this subject: the way people hold their body and how different practices construct the impermeable as much as the porose. The many bodies packed together in the Grand Palais and in the Théatre de la Ville, being touched by the few bodies on display and hardly touched by the many bodies surrounding them. Where do we look, and what do we look for, in the metro or in the bar. How are the artists mentioned above trying to change our body by the way they are holding theirs or holding it their way.

DUO RESIDENCIES - ALEXANDER BAERVOETS

Today I read in Etcetera (September 2008 - yes! i am always behind) another article by Lieve Dierckx on Wachet Auf by Alexander Baervoets.

Googleling ahead, a non-descript newspage http://212.68.196.116/241/Home ... announces Baervoets' new project: DUO RESIDENCIES

"In a series of DUO RESIDENCIES Alexander Baervoets will set up from next season onwards meetings with fellow choreographers, theoreticians and artists from different media. They will each time work in co-authorship towards a product that will be shown at the end of the residence."

#1 was with choreographer Danièle Desnoyers in Montréal, Circuit-Est (October 2008)
#2 was in Tanzfabrik, Potsdam, with researcher Maren Witte (November 2008)

So now we know. Very curious who the next partners in crime will be and what the residing in exchange, research and partnership will bring on the long term ...