Slash Universe
Dana Michel and Yoan Sorin

13.10—15.12.19

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    2019

A proposal by Marie Bechetoille

Scenography: Romain Guillet

 

Dana Michel and Yoan Sorin met about a dozen years ago in Montreal. It was the beginning of a deep connection based on art and friendship. Both have taken indirect paths to get to where they are today, practicing sports at an advanced level, for instance, while bonding over numerous references. In performance they have found a way of feeling, sparking, and sharing emotions by bringing in their own lived experiences. In her shows, the choreographer Dana Michel is able to summon on stage multiple identities that embody the relationship between fragility and violence, vulnerability and self-mockery, the grotesque and the sublime. Depending on the context, Yoan Sorin mixes and appropriates for his own ends artistic and cultural codes through drawing, installation, painting, and performance. His role as an art advisor for Dana Michel is a way for both of them to keep in touch and continue their discussion. Their family backgrounds link both to the Caribbean, they create a cartography that is eclectic, polysemic, and indistinct, one that resists being defined or pinned down. The presence of autobiographic elements is a chance to elude projections and deploy possibilities. The body sets in motion personal stories and daily gestures to speak about the margins, the issues that power raises, and connections with others. By their reversal of established hierarchies, the odd and the intimate are united.

At CAC Brétigny, Dana Michel and Yoan Sorin have been invited for the first time to work together with and on the things they have been thinking about and hungering after, their reflections and their dreams, in the form of a joint exhibition, offering assemblages, visits, and breaks from reality. Thanks to the designer Romain Guillet, the art center’s space has been reimagined as a place for experimentation, something that is modular and evolving. At the start, midway through, and at the end of this project, performances will reactivate the installation. The works are at one and the same time sculptures, paintings, props, settings, pedestals, and bases. They seem to be hiding behind masks and are rediscovered, looming up transformed. These shifts and evolutions allow each visitor to imagine a subjective intuitive narrative. “Slash Universe” is an environment in which nothing is fixed so that improvisation can thrive. The show speaks of a friendship, an open correspondence between two artists who enjoy producing work together. Gradually a place forms and comes into focus, where one is constantly changing direction, boredom is never a bad experience, and failure is a rebound, where one parries and reappropriates expectation, and everything remains to be invented.

Marie Bechetoille
 

Dana Michel is a Montreal-based choreographer and performer. She earned a BFA in contemporary dance from Concordia University and in 2011 was the recipient of a “danceWeb” grant (Vienna). She was a resident of Usine C (Montreal) and the National Center for Dance in Ottawa. In 2014, Dana Michel was awarded the ImPuls Tanz Prize (Vienna). Her solo piece Mercurial George was performed at the Festival TransAmériques (Montreal) in 2016. In 2017, she was awarded the Silver Lion for innovative dance at the Venice Biennale. In 2018, she became the first artist in residence for dance at the National Arts Centre of Ottawa. Dana Michel is an associate artist with Par B.L.eux, a contemporary dance company founded and directed by Benoît Lachambre.

Yoan Sorin lives and works in Douarnenez, France. He is a graduate of the School of Fine Arts in Nantes and the universities of Montreal and Cuenca. His drawings, paintings, videos, and performances break down the distinctions between popular culture and art. His work has been featured at La Friche Belle de Mai (Marseille, 2015), Frac des Pays de la Loire (Nantes, 2016), A-Frame (La Courneuve, 2017),  MNAC (Bucharest, 2016), Nada lokal (Vienna, 2018), Hunter East Harlem Gallery (New York, 2018) and 40mcube (Rennes, 2019). He joined the company nadaproductions as a dancer and designer in 2017, and collaborates with 14N61W Gallery in Fort-de-France (Haiti) since 2018.

Marie Bechetoille is a curator and art critic. She was interim director of the contemporary art center La Synagogue de Delme (2016-2017), project coordinator at Bétonsalon—art and research center in Paris (2012-2014), and exhibition assistant at the Swiss Institute in New York (2010), the Palais de Tokyo (2009), and MAMVP (2007). In her projects she has notably experimented with the relationships between curatorial and publishing formats in working with artists, curators, graphic designers and designers. She has put together shows at Bucharest’s National Museum of Contemporary Art, the Quartier in Quimper, 6b in Saint-Denis, and In extenso in Clermont-Ferrand. In 2013, she cofounded the association Fanfiction 93, which publishes works in Seine-Saint-Denis according to a collective collaborative approach. She is a member of C-E-A (a French association of exhibition curators), AICA (the International Association of Art Critics), and the editorial board of La belle revue.

Romain Guillet is a Paris-based designer developing his work in a range of contexts, including set design, furniture, the living arts, and CGI. Between 2008 and 2010, he was part of the team put together by Mathieu Lehanneur, and during the same period cofounded Statue, a studio specialized in the design of objects, and later the residency and publishing house Dixjours in 2016. In 2018, in Paris, he opened a project space called Confort Mental that is dedicated to collaborative production modes and ways of working. At the same time he has designed furniture and interiors for the Pompidou Center in Paris and Malaga, the Beaux Arts of Paris, the Palais de Tokyo, and Toulouse’s Printemps de septembre, and regularly collaborates with Lafayette Anticipations.

 

A public service of Cœur d’Essonne Agglomération, CAC Brétigny, Contemporary art center of national interest, benefits from the support of Ministère de la Culture—DRAC Île-de-France, Région Île-de-France and Conseil départemental de l’Essonne, and with the complicity of the Brétigny-sur-Orge's municipality. CAC Brétigny is a member of TRAM and d.c.a. Yoan Sorin benefited the support of the Cité Internationale des Arts.

 

Documents

Agenda

  • Sunday, October 13th, from 12 pm

    Slash Universe

    Opening and performance by Dana Michel and Yoan Sorin

    Free Paris-Brétigny shuttle is available by request at reservation@cacbretigny.com
    Pick-up at 11:30 am at 104 avenue de France, 75013 Paris (the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand metro stop).

    12:30 pm: Brunch
    2 pm: Performance

  • Thursday, October 10th, 5pm—7pm

    Slash Universe

    Educational visit

    You are invited to a preview of the exhibition to discover the activities that we propose for the groups and the school public through a visit of the exhibition "Slash Universe" followed by a snack.

    For kindergarten, elementary and secondary school teachers, animators, educators and associations. Registration: reservation@ cacbretigny.com

  • Saturday, November 9th, at 4 pm

    Slash Universe

    Performance by Yoan Sorin

    The art center's space has been reimagined as a place for experimentation, something that is modular and evolving. At the start, midway through, and at the end of this project, performances will reactivate the installation.

     

    TaxiTram in partnership with the MAC VAL, informations: 01 53 34 64 43 / taxitram@tram-idf.fr

  • Sunday, December 15th, at 4 pm

    Slash Universe

    Official closing of the exhibition and performance by Dana Michel and Yoan Sorin

    The art center's space has been reimagined as a place for experimentation, something that is modular and evolving. At the start, midway through, and at the end of this project, performances will reactivate the installation.

    Free Paris-Brétigny shuttle is available by request at reservation@cacbretigny.com
    Pick-up at 14:30 am at 104 avenue de France, 75013 Paris (the Bibliothèque François Mitterrand metro stop).

  • Wednesdays, 2:30 and by appointment

    "Sculptopote"

    Artmaking workshop conceived by Yoan Sorin

    During this workshop, participants are encouraged to think of their bodies as both a form and a material that can be sculpted, one they can situate in space to create a tableau. Following a tour of the show and a short warm-up with music, the kids play at a game of sculptor and statues in small groups. A deck of cards produced by the artist and bearing directions for what to do helps the kids to stage a scene and strike a pose, which they then draw and photograph.

    From 3 years old. Registration: reservation@cacbretigny.com or +33 (0)1 60 85 20 76

  • Wednesdays, 4:30 pm and by appointment

    "Plitabouille"

    Artmaking workshop conceived by Yoan Sorin

    To explore the themes of representation and transformation of the self that run throughout the show, kids take a tour of the show and then make masks from various materials echoing those seen during their visit. Drawing on their creativity, they discover for themselves the techniques of collage and folding to make pop-up masks that are changeable.

    From 3 years old. Registration: reservation@cacbretigny.com or +33 (0)1 60 85 20 76

  • Thursday, October 24th and Tuesday, October 29th, from 3 pm to 4:30 pm, Wednesday, November 13th, at 4:30 and by appointment

    "Tatêtenterre"

    Artmaking workshop conceived by Yoan Sorin

    After visiting the show and the sculptures peopling it, kids are invited to take part in a clay-modeling workshop. With the help of mirrors, the participants create a portrait of themselves in the form of a clay sculpture. Once the clay has been modeled into the desired form, this self-portrait can be taken home to dry. 

    From 8 years old. Registration: reservation@cacbretigny.com or +33 (0)1 60 85 20 76

     

  • Saturdays, October 26th, November 16th, November 30th and December 14th, from 3 to 4:30 pm and by appointment

    "Familymaton"

    Family artmaking workshop conceived by Yoan Sorin

    During this workshop, parents and kids are encouraged to think of their bodies as both a form and a material that can be sculpted, one they can situate in space to create a tableau. Following a tour of the show and short warm-up with music, they play together at a game of sculptor and statues. A deck of cards produced by the artist and bearing directions for what to do helps them to pose each other in the exhibition venue. Parents and kids then pose in front of a camera for a family portrait, drawing their inspiration from postures they explored earlier. The photo is then printed out and eventually decorated and colored in by the whole family.

    From 3 years old. Registration: reservation@cacbretigny.com or +33 (0)1 60 85 20 76