Boris Charmatz, the eminent contemporary dance figure is honoured at Frac Sud, Cité de l’art contemporain, located in the South of France in Marseilles, in a fantastic exhibition running until 24th March 2024. This is the first time that a contemporary art institution hosts an exhibition devoted to Charmatz’s moving images.

The Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain (Frac) are institutions tasked to build public contemporary art collections. Established in 1982 and founded as collaborations between the central French government and the regions, FRACs are designed to support contemporary artists. This show, curated by Muriel Enjalran, Director of FRAC Sud, independent curator and author, certainly doesn’t disappoint.

Charmatz is a dancer, choreographer and creator of experimental projects such as the Bocal pop-up school and the Musée de la Danse, Rennes. In August 2022, Boris Charmatz became Director of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. Together with Tanztheater Wuppertal and Terrain, the experimental structure he founded, Charmatz leads a new artistic project dedicated to jointly developing his choreographic work and the repertoire of Pina Bausch. In September 2023 he created Liberté Cathédrale, his first piece with the Ensemble. Throughout his impressive career, from À bras-le-corps (1993) to SOMNOLE (2021), Charmatz invented a series of milestone pieces, including Att enen tionon (1996), enfant (2011)—created for the Cour d’Honneur at the Festival d’Avignon — and 10000 gestes (2017). He is the author of several books (Entretenir / à propos d’une danse contemporaine, 2003, co-written with Isabelle Launay; Je suis une école, 2009), and is also an actor and improvisor (having worked with Odile Duboc, Médéric Collignon, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Tino Sehgal).

Staged on two floors, the spectacular space at Rue de Dunkerque in Marseilles, Danses gâchées dans l’herbe welcomes a series of choreographic films that reflect on Charmatz’s iconic dance performances. These large-scale tableaux vivants evoke the histories of both modern dance and painting and art.

“Here, investigating the Museum is a way of acting in the public sphere and creating new experiences for the actively engaged viewer-visitor. In the exhibition, the public, as in many of Boris Charmatz’s pieces, is physically placed on the same level as the dancers and thus develops a particular proximity and intimacy with them. The body of the dancers becomes the space where the transmission of emotions happens, receptacles of memories which solicit the body of the viewer as much as their mind.” Muriel Enjalran writes.

Boris Charmatz is known for staging dance in art museums and his Tate collaboration, a few years ago, was highly praised by audiences and critics alike. This intensely beautiful and eclectic exhibition reflects on his 25-year career. It is an introspection exploring themes of solitude, mysticism and body language, culminating with Transept, a masterpiece filmed in Saint-Eustache Church, Paris, and dramatically presented on the first floor of the exhibition space.

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Images: Boris Charmatz « Danses gâchées dans l’herbe », Frac Sud, 2023, photo Laurent Lecat / Frac Sud – Cité de l’art contemporain