The first time I met artist Renée Paule was in a Schnitzel restaurant somewhere in Neukölln. I believe she had just moved to Berlin and her energy reminded me of Lady Gaga in Marry the Night: “I’m gonna be a star!”
In the music video, between a mental breakdown and setting cars on fire, Gaga returns to the dance studio to learn choreography.
For her new publication, Renée Paule Dance Company, Renée Paule revisits the concept of choreography and the age-old question of how movement can be recorded and passed on as score — answering it through the (literal) lens of photography with a flip book of 27 dance poses printed on ivory paper.
“Though photography is easily accused of abridging a manoeuvre's true extent, this book insists on, and persists in, providing an unabridged account of a dance. A presentation before a representation. There might be a formal end but like a jewelry-box ballerina (but without the overwinding), the reiteration of this performance is in your hands. It depends entirely on the acts of opening and closing, and turning page after page after page.”
The book launch is in Brussels next week. See you there, maybe.
