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Sacrificial Dance

Eloise Fornieles

Private View Aug 8th 6-9pm

Sat Aug 9th-Sunday Aug 10th 12-6pm

Late in his life Stravinsky confessed that the initial idea behind Le Sacre du Printemps was born of a vision of a pagan ritual in which a girl danced herself to death. Although Fornieles won’t dance herself to an early grave, she will dance [to the infamous score] for the duration of the exhibition.

Paris, spring of 1913. The premier of the ballet was received with violent shouts and catcalls that degenerated into rioting, as the audience felt outraged by the dissonant and jarring pulsations of the music and Nijinsky’s primitive, overtly sexual choreography.

The piece is played to the Wallis Gallery audience whilst the performer dances to contemporary music of similar sexual and violent themes, which she is listening to on her ipod.

The aggressive polytonality of Le Sacre, with its pagan and ritual accents, envelops Fornieles’ solitary dance set in an installation which calls upon domestic aesthetics. The performance, through its setting and soundscape, plays itself out as a physical sacrifice. It drags the audience into a reclaimed territory: the home becomes a stage, the dance defies the music and the sacrificial act becomes an act of self-empowerment.