WILLIAM FORSYTHE "ALIGNIGUNG 2" 
Level 1, Tecto Pintado Room

Germany / USA | Instalation

World renowned, William Forsythe is considered to be one of the main choreographers of our time. For over four decades he has created outputs that redefine the vocabulary of classical ballet and his innovative approach to choreography, directing, lighting and dance analysis has influenced countless choreographers and artists. Since the 90s, parallel to his stage creations, Forsythe has developed installations, sculptures and movies he calls “Choreographic Objects”. Blurring the lines between performance, sculpture and installation, his “Choreographic Objects” invite the spectator to confront the fundamental notions of choreography.

BoCA presents for the first time in Portugal one of the pieces that integrates this “Choreographic Objects” series, the video-installation “Alignigung 2”, in three museums of the three official hosting cities of BoCA 2019.

“Alignigung 2” introduces a choreography where dancers Riley Watts and Rauf Yasit (aka “Rubber Legz”) cross their bodies in a constellation of knots. It is offered an object that subtracts common elements usually linked to choreography: the structural development of time and space and the visual isolation of some parts. The intertwining two bodies form what Forsythe likes to call “optical puzzles” for that complex intertwine creates optical enigmas that frequently defy logic. “Alignigung 2” is a hybrid between choreography, film and sculpture, and counts with the musical collaboration of Ryoji Ikeda.



MEG STUART "THE ONLY POSSIBLE CITY" 
Level 1, The Chapel of the Albertas

Initially conceived for an ample and neutral room of Manifesta, this video-installation by Meg Stuart is now re-contextualized in the Albertas’ Chapel, inside the MNAA - National Museum of Antique Art in Lisbon. The chapel was the Saint Albert Convent, a female Carmelite convent founded in the end of the 16th century and probably only few remember it. The site has been closed and is in need of repairs, being opened exclusively and temporarily for the showing of this piece. Meg Stuart is exposed. A human face in a space of human hyper-representation. The real exposed in a place of representation. Stuart looks at us, face to face, without artifice and with the determination of someone talking to us, yet her eyes falter to the point we question: is it us who look at Stuart or is Stuart the one looking at us? We look at Meg Stuart. And in her face we don’t just see the simple exhibit of appearance, of what is in the front of the head or what it involves, this meaning that her face is not really understood in a plastic, aesthetic or psychological sense. It reveals otherness. Meg Stuart looks at us. And in that gesture we find imposition, giving orders and asking for clemency, as Emmanuel Lévinas says: “the face of the Other reminds the obligations of the ‘I’”. Meg Stuart’s face, a female entity inside this chapel once inhabited only by reclusive women, brings us the counterpoint of a city’s speed and an experienced body, traveler and free. In this place of refuge, of mystery and of silence we see a face, a human being, we see a woman, a dancer and choreographer. Meg Stuart’s face is not on the plane of playing. It permeates the space.


Complete program at www.bocabienal.org

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