16 Apr 2010

Choreographer Xavier Le Roy presents new work at MIT

French choreographer Xavier Le Roy is in residence at the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) to research and present an ongoing work entitled more floor pieces. Free and open to the public, the performance takes place at the Media Lab Complex, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge.

Over the course of the semester Xavier Le Roy has been working with MIT researchers and students to deepen a work conceived as contemplative landscapes or tableaus. The landscapes result from a configuration of bodies and the ways in which they inhabit an imaginary space. These figures, the situations they construct, and the acts of contemplating, spectating and attending the performance are the subjects of this work.
 
First developed at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier in 200, it was presented in Madrid at the festival In-presentable in June 2009 under the title to contemplate. It was later shown under the title floor pieces at the collection of Julia Stoschek in Düsseldorf in January 2009. Developed during several residencies, Le Roy has worked with local performers to challenge the tendencies toward consensus that he believes group work tends to perpetuate. Each phase of the ongoing project involves the transmission of scenes that have been composed in previous residencies while incorporating new scenes produced by the local group. The performance, developed over time, remains singular and renewed in each city. Now at MIT, its unique community shapes the project based on its mix of participants and their diverse horizons.

French choreographer Xavier Le Roy studied biochemistry at the University of Montpellier before beginning his dance career in 1988. He performed for various companies before founding his current company, in situ productions with Petra Roggel in 1999. From 2000 and on, Le Roy collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Jerome Bel and Yvonne Rainer and presented his work in various settings. He recently choreographed and performed Rites of Spring at Performa 07 in New York City; and another new work at the Montpellier Danse Festival 2008. Le Roy is in residence at the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) this spring.

Performed by: Michael D. Andelman, Eleanor Bauer, Sarah Baumert, Nell Breyer, Alissa Cardone, Theodossios Issaias, Neto Machado, Xavier Le Roy, Sarah Witt.

Supported in part by: MIT France, MISTI, Simmons Hall, McCormick Hall, MIT Foreign Languages and Literatures, The French Cultural Services and The Consulate General of France, MIT Theater Arts and Dance, The MAP Fund, The Doris Duke Foundation, ICA Boston.

The Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) operates as a critical studies and production-based laboratory connecting the arts with an advanced technological community. ACT faculty, fellows and students engage in advanced visual studies and research by implementing both an experimental and systematic approach to creative production and transdisciplinary collaboration. As an academic and research unit the ACT Program emphasizes both knowledge production and knowledge dissemination. In the tradition of artist and educator Gyorgy Kepes, founder of MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies and an advocate of 'art on a civic scale' -- we believe in artistic leadership as a vital voice that can initiate change, a critically transformative view of the world and a civil responsibility to enrich cultural discourse. visualarts.mit.edu/