World Fair

Theatre Junction GRAND and Springboard Performance present

World Fair
by L’A/Rachid Ouramdane (Paris)
Oct 5-8, 2011

Part of the 2011 Fluid Festival

What can dance do that history books can’t?  In his new work World Fair, Rachid Ouramdane attempts to address the connection between the human body and the political ideologies we create. History books may supply documents and facts, but this has nothing to do with our actual experience.

No society—whether conservative, liberal or revolutionary— developed itself without the use of art as a means to build a national identity. Controlling a society’s imagery is a way to maintain the social order, like the way in which some states propose attractive images of violence in order to make war bearable. Social movements too can change our connection to our body–the ‘hippie movement’ of the 1960s literally exploded old perceptions and a new ideology of the body and of community was born.

This ‘aesthetics of politics’ literally transforms the way we see ourselves, providing us with the image of the stable, unchanging body–when in fact, the body is a fragile, mortal form. What is the nature of the gap between personal experience and official history?

Technically sophisticated, conceptually fascinating… disquieting as only the best art can be.

The New York Times

Exposition universelle (World Fair) / Rachid Ouramdane from Association L’A. on Vimeo.

Rachid Ouramdane is a French choreographer of Algerian descent and a driving force in the conceptual upheaval taking place in the realm of dance today. After working with numerous leading figures in contemporary art, he founded his company, L’A in 2007 as a site for the ‘artistic exploration of contemporary identity’.  Using the solo performance as a means of conveying the collective experience by way of the individual, his work examines the effects of colonialism, war and oppression on the body and, subsequently, the human spirit.

Performed with live music composed by Jean-Baptiste Julien, World Fair is an intriguing work that asks us to re-examine our own ideologies.

…provocative, exquisite work: simplicity and theatricality; text and subtext; complexity economically drawn.

Ballet Magazine

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