Ginger and Fred | A history of performance art on the Riviera from 1951 until now

Creator:

Sophie Taam

Performer:

Sophie Taam

Bibliographical sources:

catalogue Hors Champ de l’exposition

Website:

//www.sophietaam.com

Theoretical background:

"If a wide audience is to be reached, according to Dick Higgins, one must speak the language of that audience". And then concluding that mediocrity wins against art, far from being prevailed upon by art.
With my projects, I modestly (but firmly) try to show that this fate is not a definitive one. In the history of contemporary art, Fluxus or John Cage, for example, could represent a phase that I would qualify as an adolescent one. They pushed back the limits of artistic experimentation and, in order to break the academicism, by systematically rejecting conventions, linguistic or musical ones alike, contemporary art has further moved away from non- initiated, ordinary audiences, much like a teenager rebels against his parents to find its identity.
This phase was essentially turned "against" something. It was necessary to expand the boundaries of art but it seems to me that contemporary art has now reached a certain degree of maturity enabling it to receive my work. Just like the teenager who refuses rules, and then reinstates them once an adult by personalizing them, I reintegrate rules into my work: those of language, of the signifier.

I use language, just like Filliou, with an emphasis put on the meaning of words rather than on their shape, and I use singing, with its strict vibrato rules and lyrical technique, for the sake of aesthetics.
If the previous experiments were needed to push back the boundaries of art, they have, in my opinion, reached their limit as a result.

Sophie Taam

Occurence:

Places:

MJC Picaud

Starting date:

05 19 2007

4:19 minutes

Topology:

cultural complex/sports complex

Organization:

no-made

Background:

during the opening of the exhibition Hors Champ of the No-Made collective

Adress:

23 avenue du docteur Picaud

Cannes

France

Description:

A freely adapted Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers choreography using the original music of their movie Top Hat. This performance, like Fellini's film, satirizes the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle. Sophie Taam’s dance partner is a paper character designed by Virginie Teurbane. During the performance, the psychological climate deteriorates progressively and leads to the murder of the fictitious partner.

Sophie Taam