Le Silence des Danses

The oeuvre of the artist Merlin Spie (B. 1969) comprises drawings, sculptures installations, performances and many works we could describe as 'installation in which there are living persons who have been transformed into sculptures'. 

In her last project, Le Silence des Danses (2009), Spie brings three works together in a project which fits in with this last description. 

The three solos have been seen in three different places in the Kaaistudios, Brussels on the 27th March 2009 (thanks, Sven, for the images) 

In -Recollection of the Mind- the dancer Jorien Onsia is hanging in a upright position, in profile, between a large and a small screen. From the large screen a pipe passes through her head as far as the small screen. We literally see inside the figure's head. The movements we see on the large screen are filtered by the head; on the small screen we read the result of the process. In collaboration with the video artist Alda Snopek, Merlin Spie has created a mental space in which she suggests emotional processes using moving blocks and a play of light and shade. Ludo Engels has created a scoundscape to accompany these processes. 

In -Memory of Thoughts- a figure is positioned between two blocks, live a living caryatid. Together with the dancer Karolina Wolkowiecka, Merlin Spie has developed a 'choreography for two arms', the only limbs this figure is able to move. Th seated woman does not however appear to feel crushed or restrained by the situation she is in. Indeed, she seems to want to get the maximum out of the movements she can make.Performed by Agniezka Domochowska.

In -Le silence des Danses- Merlin Spie herself takes her place in a place with a sloping floor. Her upright body slides down the slope to the bottom. At the bottom of the slope she is literally pushed uphill by a powerful jet of water directed onto her torso. This short cycle of coming and going is repeated over and over again. Merlin Spie shows her vulnerable body enveloped in clothes. Invisible under her clothes, she wears a cast she has made of her own body, something she has done in many of her earlier works. This method is reminiscent of a practice Francis Baconalso used in his paintings and wanted to use as guideline in sculpture 'I've thought about sculptures on a kind of armature, a very large armature made so that sculpture could slide along it... The armature would not be as important as the image, but it would be there to set it off.' The armature supports a structure. The delicate structure know as man. 

 

One of Merlin Spie's sources of inspiration is the Russian Suprematism of Malevitch and especially of El Lissitsky. These two artists no longer wishes to imitate the world or describe reality, but capture its energy and intensity in simple geometric shapes and bright primary colours: a poursuit of essence and abstraction, the end of which search was reached in Malevitch's monochrome square. However, El Lissitsky gave a new dynamism to Suprematism with this so-called 'prouns'. A proun is a painting into which a movement -and therefore a time perspective- is introduced. The video Alda Snopek created, can be described as a quotation, a modern equivalent of El Lissitsky's proun, but made using real technological means. 

Movement means covering a distance: something spatial. However, covering any distance also assumes the passing of a period of time. Introducing movement can therefore only be achieved by rethinking the principles to be applied to time and space. The confrontation with covering a distance and with passing of time inevitably also means entering into a relationship with a form of narrative, or the conscious choice not to enter into the relationship. The woman between the two blocks in -Memory of thought- is in a situation rather than in a story. Through the movements of her body she makes the situation manageable. The situation is precarious but she does not experience it as tragic. A small, gentle, patient Sisyphus. In -Recollection of the Mind- a report is made of a process. Thought appears to be a movement. The suspended, floating figure experiences the linear course of time that the black and grey blocks cover from the large to the small screen and through her head. The construction developed on the small screen is very different to that on the large one. A change has taken place from chaos to order: is this not the story of the battle people fight every day? 

Finally -Le Silence des Danses- is dominated by cyclical time: the same movements are repeated over and over again. However, this accumulation of 'always the same' gives rise to 'something different'. This leads to change ans therefore to 'a story'. The story of a body that offers resistance to an outside force: a hard confrontation, but at the same time a discussion and a dialogue. A positive process.

(based on a text by Marianne Van Kerkhoven, dramaturge // Kaaitheater)