Tino Sehgal and Juan Mata Collaborate on Football Performance 'This entry'

Performance artist Tino Sehgal and World Cup-winning footballer Juan Mata have collaborated on a new work titled 'This entry', premiered at the 2023 Manchester International Festival. The piece is part of a larger curated programme 'The Trequartista: Art and Football United', co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, director of Serpentine Galleries, and Mata. The programme will involve eleven professional footballers and eleven artists, with the remaining ten collaborations to launch at the 2025 festival. Sehgal's work combines elements of dance, storytelling, and choreography, drawing parallels between footballers' movements and contemporary dance, specifically referencing experimental dancer Steve Paxton of Judson Dance Theater. 'This entry' features three artistic cyclists, two violinists, two dancer-singers, and a trained footballer performing a repertoire of improvised movements and actions. The performance was staged at the National Football Museum in Manchester and later repeated at the Whitworth Art Gallery, where Mata previously spent time during his nine-year tenure at Manchester United. Sehgal, who is not a football fan, has long wanted to create a work about the sport, focusing on the suspense and liveness of a football match. The collaboration emerged after Obrist contacted Mata via Instagram. Orit Gat, a writer and contributing editor at The White Review, reflects on the connection between art and football, citing Barthes's concept of empathy in spectatorship.