ELISABETH WARD

FRAME OF RESEARCH

The residency at Bains Connective uses the performance practice Vitus Dance as it’s departure. Using a score of extended balances, turning and jumping Vitus Dancestems from the vocabulary of ballet while seeking to find other ways of being and relating (to ourselves, to others, to space) than the established Ballet has valued. Since 2013 the solo has been performed in an old convent in the North of France, a former factory in Barcelona, various apartments in Brussels, an old Elk’s Lodge in Brooklyn, a former spice warehouse in Detroit, a basement in Vienna and a church in Manhattan. The work was heavily influenced by the June 2012 riots in Molenbeek. Researching the contemporary riots lead to learning that Molenbeek, like many villages throughout Europe, was a site of the medieval phenomenon known as Dancing Mania or St. Vitus Dance. People would break from their daily lives and collectively gather in frenzied dancing lasting days, weeks, months and in some cases involved tens of thousands of people. One common theory of the phenomenon is that this was a mass psychogenic illness that was directly linked to the distress of the population during times of extreme crisis-famine, war, plague. With “Crisis” dominating current economic vocabulary Vitus Dance looks to the medieval dancing bodies and attempts a contemporary meditation on the potential, if fleeting moments of insight, resilience and energy found in the dancing body. The time at Bains will be used to test formats to invite others into the practice and expand the solo into a group practice. Elizabeth will be joined by electronic music producer and dj Van-Monte (www.van-monte.com).