De la Guerre, à l’Art
Across its thirteen chapters, The Art of War, Sun Tzu’s ancient treatise, sets out how a general can win the battle even with his hands tied. The sheath of the sword, the study of the opponent’s physiognomy, the appropriation of terrain, attack by fire: so many strategies that have become universal principles of tactics and survival. These thirteen chapters, which shaped Chinese military thought, are transformed here into thirteen performative movements tracing the metamorphosis of a body turned militant.
Concerned with the patterns of transformation and self-assertion of minority bodies in their quest for access to elite places of culture, this dance found refuge in the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. What paths must a body take to reconfigure itself and exist in a space where it does not recognise itself? What is at stake in such a laying bare, of traumas, of fault lines, of bodily exhaustion?
Yoga, tai chi, martial arts, weight training: techniques for preparing body and mind merge into a choreography of resistance, a breathless dance in which fatigue becomes revelation and the body, crossed by trance, surrenders to a total, almost synaesthetic transformation.
With the support of Espace 29, a contemporary art centre in Bordeaux, the performance became a dance film, acquired by the departmental collection of Seine-Saint-Denis in 2023.
Technical details
Title From War to Art (De la Guerre à l’Art)
Year 2019
Medium Performance, dance film
Duration 32 min
Location Chapelle des Petits-Augustins, Beaux-Arts de Paris
Award Prix des Amis des Beaux-Arts de Paris, 2019
Film With the support of Espace 29, Bordeaux
Collection Departmental collection of Seine-Saint-Denis, acquired 2023
Photos
Writings
I wake up in the chapel, lying on the floor.
My body against the cold stone of this tomb-like place.
Yannick is beside me; we wake at the same moment after a Feldenkrais session centred on the right ankle. We share the feeling of not knowing where we are. This loss of any sense of the moment and the place we are in frightens us. How will I enter this new place where I have never danced? How will I wake my body, a body that will have to go through a new battle in a new place?
It is like entering a dojo cold. Cold body and cold floor.
A set that spins, centrifugal life. A life crossing the history of humanity.
The conquistador and his horse look at my body lying there. The image of dominance of this enormous figure facing my already exhausted and wounded body interests me. I make this cold stone sacred; it becomes a Noh stage when I put on my shoes. The spirit of the sleeping recumbent effigies enters my body.
I spin, and the horse becomes a chronophotographic image beneath my eyelids. Its body passes through mine. It is far bigger than me; my very massive body becomes very small.
Powerlessness.
I float.
It is my Last Judgement, and Michelangelo’s draws the backdrop behind my body. My score runs, from 1 to 13, through the history of war. The history of civilisations, of Chinese society. A user’s manual for conquering territories.
13 chapters. 13 movements. 13. My body, like water, adapts to the terrain. A foreign body from elsewhere, one that crossed the sea, that flew here. This body adapts. The body adapts.
The wind is cut by the staff. This loss of axis is extremely violent for my body. I am frightening, but above all to myself. I am my own soldier, and my own enemy.
It is almost impossible for me to describe the emotions I feel when I move. I am caught up in this mad movement with my turns. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. How long have I been
spinning?
How long have I been going round in circles?
Has anything changed since I started spinning? Am I going round in circles for nothing? Will I go round in circles forever?
Hector’s music carries me, the birds remind me of home. But the sound of birds in the forest is a sign of imminent danger. They stir my memory; I think of my home town.
Imminent danger.
I smile, but I am constantly afraid.
Will I hurt myself doing what I am doing? Will I hurt someone?
I lose my axis.
I jump
I end with you. In you. In your eyes. In your gaze. Is the one who watches a voyeur? Are you afraid of the body you are watching? I sweat, I am afraid, I do not know what I am doing. Our existence is undivided.
I am the same as y o u .
I must trust what makes my body.