Dance invades museums: Corsino's Topologies at MAC Marseille

Dance artists are increasingly hosted by museums, galleries, and art centers, as traditional theaters become less suited to contemporary choreographic proposals. The Crestet hosted Myriam Gourfink and Alain Buffard (also at Consortium), while Villa Gillet in Lyon will host Emmanuelle Huynh after a spring residency. Two current examples of dance's displacement into exhibition spaces are Catherine Contour's Autoportrait at La Criée in Rennes and Nicole and Norbert Corsino's Topologies de l'instant at the MAC galleries in Marseille (November 2001–February 2002). The Corsinos, video-choreographers, explore multiple technological approaches from analog recording to interactivity, creating mysterious objects that problematize reception through irregularity and singular spectator experience. Their work contrasts with the Centre Pompidou's Vidéo-danse event. The Corsinos have worked at Simon Fraser University with Thecla Shiphorst, co-designer of Life Forms software used by Merce Cunningham, and are expected at MIT's image technology department. They organize colloquia and publications, with a book forthcoming from Actes Sud. A presentation text states: 'One must reappropriate the body, not only the dancer's but our own. This knowledge is also scientific knowledge of mobility and physiology. Choreography extends to other objects: screens, images, devices, and the physiological relationship at play in the spectator's gaze.'