Laurent Fiévet

Dem Bones series gather new editings made in 2014 from American musicals. Proceeding back and forth between the different film extracts, each one hectors the different bodies, whether they evoluate solo, in couples or in groups according to the works. Bodies are dislocated through acrobatic movements or sequences of perilous movements ; this partially explains the reason for the installation’s title.

By the work done about performances of dancing bodies in movies and about musicals, Dislocated is an extension of They Shoot Horses Don’t They? series made in 2010 and 2011. But unlike the latter where they were more independant, back and forth movements of the image determine directly the sound logic of assemblies, thus giving place to structuring and musical composition effects, which are more reminiscent of researches made about language in Swing High, Swing Low series or about whistling in Whistle series.

Where Dem bones’refers to one of the sets of Vincente Minnelli’s The Band Wagon used in one of the editings of the series, the term Dislocated induces other kinds of resonances in the collected film extracts. Indeed, it refers to effects of narrative uncouplings through fiction (interruption of the narrative frame to introduce a dance, i.e. the characters shift to a more imaginary or dreamlike register) as well as to stylistic changes in the aesthetics of reworked sequences (through the introduction of animated elements or remarkable choreographic effects) and to a geographical, identity or social outrooting specific to the characters and which show a kind of malaise in their relationship with the world or their incapacity of becoming integrated in an over-codified society for them.