Dancing in the dark

Dancing in the dark, dance performance, total darkness, 3 cigarettes, 3 dancers, 2010

Experiments are designed to isolate how we understand our understanding, and how we perceive perception, when all that is certain is that neither can be certain.”
(Peggy Phelan, Unmarked – the politics of performance)
The Dancing in the dark project is about a simple idea, that is cutting the visual aspect out of a dance piece, by means of the darkness.
Indeed three dancers, black suited, dance in total darkness, and at the end, when the light turns on the stage is found empty. Thus the public can feel, can imagine their presence but cannot see almost anything.
This performance is actually an experiment, to see what happens if unusual conditions are set and different premises are put into action.
The project is born inside the exhibition I’ll never give up smoking, curated by Alba Braza Boils.
The dancers who took part in the experiment were Enrico L’Abbate, Claudia Mannelli, Elisa Romagnani.