Danse-Guerre: Choreographing Conflict at Musée de la Danse

The exhibition "Danse-Guerre" at the Musée de la Danse in Rennes, running from September 20 to October 24, 2013, explores the intersection of dance and war. Curated by Boris Charmatz, it features two guest curators: Cosmin Costinas, director of Para Site in Hong Kong, and Bojana Cvejić, a performance theorist and dramaturge. Costinas presents a single artist, Rabih Mroué, with his video series "4 centuries are but a part of yesterday," including "Duo for two missing at the time of a fragile peace," which references a Beirut nightclub built over a mass grave, and "Between two Battles," an inventory of television static that Mroué once believed contained encrypted messages. Cvejić assembles works and documents by Steve Paxton on contact improvisation, Yvonne Rainer on war in the 1960s-70s, Noé Soulier's "Corps formés" linking dance and combat geometry, Franck Leibovici's "redescription" of military training videos, and Marta Popivoda and Ana Vujanović's triptych on Yugoslav dance parades as precursors to conflict. The exhibition occupies all spaces of the choreographic center, including dressing rooms, but lacks historical depth and stronger ties to visual arts.