In-Gallery Performance Marie Chouinard’s IN MUSEUM

About

IN MUSEUM is a rare opportunity to experience Montreal choreographer and dancer Marie Chouinard in a solo performance, a form she explored in her remarkable first works in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. Individuals circulating in a gallery space can ask a question or make a request of Marie Chouinard, be it personal or universal, to which she then responds, performing intimate rituals and dance of dazzling spontaneity. Between each encounter, she takes time to refocus before embodying the next visitor's inner world and aspirations.

Working from the theme of “making the whirling world stand still” (fixer les vertiges) that is inspired by a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, Chouinard's performance brings to mind a white-clad Pythia, the prophetess of Delphi. This ancient Greek character delivered her prophecies in a trance and a language that only priests of the temple knew how to interpret.

IN MUSEUM is performed in the galleries of the MCA exhibition Color Bind, which provides a strong complement of power and simplicity.