Boris Charmatz: Levée des conflits

Drexel University's Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design brought acclaimed French choreographer and experimental dancer Boris Charmatz to Philadelphia for a residency and public presentation of his performance piece for 24 dancers, Levée des conflits (Suspension of conflicts), at Drexel's Mandell Theater co-presented by FringeArts. Viscerally and conceptually compelling, Levée des conflits is a work for 24 dancers based on 25 repetitive movements that unfold over time. Each dancer develops a movement that is transmitted to the performers, accumulating in space, and building person by person, from a solo into more direct relationships and interactions, and finally expanding into a performance of the full series by the entire cast. The mesmerizing piece provides, in Charmatz's words, "a blurring of the way one looks at the circulation, the passing, the appropriation of gestures [dance] that drift among a group." Activities surrounding the performance included movement workshops with Philadelphia dancers, and a conversation between Charmatz and independent curator Simon Dove.