July 1st, 2009: Vincent Dunoyer – Sister

@abbesses

I only knew Vincent Dunoyer as a dancer, and that made me wary of the concept of this show being just too big for a first impression. That was right, unfortunately, in that I would often just get too focused on echoes of the many times I’ve seen Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker work. It was pretty obvious that some familiarity with his own stuff would have helped me see beyond that. So I’m quite sure I missed most of the point.

After a long video showing a dancer repeatedly trying to through a whole sequence, Vincent Dunoyer did a quite good long sequence in silence, going through a lot of familiar movements, but in a somewhat different way. That really brought home how much I was missing, but getting beyong the call of memories was a struggle I just lost.

When Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker herself replaced him, it was quite more of the same, probably more challenging for me, as her presence would only reinforce the memories. The repetition of these movements — video, Dunoyer, De Keersmaeker — did add something, and Dunoyer’s occasional coaching was probably more helpful to me than to her — and the audience was obviously its target. But I still can’t shake the feeling that I missed the point. I stand by my original fear, seeing it again wouldn’t be much better, I would need to see his own work first to have a shot at understanding this one. I just whiffed this time.