Appropriations: Excavation of Movement

YELP danceco.'s dives into an archeological past in order to explore the art of pottery, specifically the black-figure and red-figure vases of the Archaic period. Working through practices of the art of appropriation on selected images from vase paintings that depict aspects of ancient Greek life, such as war, symposia and sports this choreographic work  imagines possible parallels with the present day. Movement, music, and text carve out an excavation field and a framework of questions that  allow past and present elements to interweave in a dynamic relationship.

​Dancers and musicians cooperate in digging out artefacts which, in conjunction with operations of transformation, juxtaposition and alloying, generate a fluid state in which past, present, and future constitute interrelated manifestations of the same experience. 

If one considers the transition from black-figure to red-figure vases as the very first representation of the anthropocentric view of the world, today we are experiencing its extreme evolution, with disastrous effects on all forms of life. What would we discover in future excavations? What will be the vases of our times, what narratives will they reveal about our civilisation?

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