Xavier Le Roy
Retrospective as mode of production

Retrospective as mode of production The aim of our work is to research and develop a retrospective of solo choreographies. It will be presented in an exhibition space open to visitors 3 hours a day during the last 5 days of the ProSeries. Retrospective is used as a mode of production and transformation of works that should become specific for the situation of an exhibition space. The work is based on choreographies produced for the apparatus of the theatre and ventures to perform the conventions of rooms usually dedicated to exhibit art-objects. By working on crossing over two sets of conventions we look for ways to transform our conception of time and space as the basis of the cultural values of our experiences. Each participant will work on solo works created between 1994 and 2009 (by Xavier Le Roy) as material for the choreographies. Each one will choose and learn some excerpts to compose and perform hers/his retrospective and develop together a choreography for an exhibition. The public situation will propose an experience of the coexistence of works and question: when and how time and duration is used, consumed or produced? What subjectivities are produced by an organisation of time and space specific to exhibition spaces, when the question is not exclusively: how long does the visitor stay? Or how long does a work of art keep her/his attention? But also: how is the work addressed to her/him? How does a spectator become a visitor and vice versa? Xavier Le Roy holds a doctorate in molecular biology from the University of Montpellier, France, and has worked as a dancer and choreographer since 1991. He has performed with diverse companies and choreographers. From 1996 to 2003, he was artist-in-residence at the Podewil in Berlin. In 2007-2008 he was "Associated Artist" at Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier, France. In 2010 Le Roy was an Artist in Residence fellow at the MIT Program in Art Culture and Technology (Cambridge, MA). Through his solo works such as "Self Unfinished" (1998) and "Product of Circumstances" (1999), he has opened new perspectives for dance and his individual approach has radicalised academic discourse about the body and choreographic art. Le Roy develops his work like a researcher, while simultaneously focusing on the relationships between process and product and his own involvement in the process. He regularly initiates projects to question modes of production, collaboration and conditions of group work with projects such as "E.X.T.E.N.S.I.O.N.S." (1999-2000), "Project" (2003), and "6 Months 1 Location" (2008). His latest works, such as the solos "Le Sacre du Printemps" (2007) and "Product of Other Circumstances" (2009), as well as the group piece "low pieces" (2010-2011), explore more explicitly diverse modes of relationships between spectators and performers.