Blue (ribbon dance)
Together with Pharmakon (it radiates) and Yet Untitled (blue), Blue (ribbon dance) form a triptych of solo performances in blue, in which Kamiński explores the question of monochromatic choreography – a choreography reduced to, produced by and related to one colour.
In Blue (ribbon dance), the colour is approached as a primary quality of an embodied experience, and simultaneously as a vehicle for contemplation and poetic reflection – a reverie of love, grief and loss. The performer moves against a dense soundtrack, which comprises reflections on the history of the colour as well as a personal narrative. He lets the blue movement leak out from within his body, gradually tints the space, and finally ornaments it through a transitional object – a blue ribbon.
Why blue? People ask me this question often. We don’t get to choose what or whom we love, I want to say. We just don’t get to choose.
Maggie Nelson, Bluets
In his work, the colour blue is put into motion with the help of associations, contexts, and experiences borrowed from other artists. “Blue (ribbon dance)" thus becomes an archive of collective queer experience and a physical manifestation of shared cultural knowledge. […] Kamiński begins his solo with the words ‘It’s very nice to be here. Actually, it’s very nice to be anywhere at all,’ from the very outset negating the distinction between physical and virtual presence and setting the stage for imaginary times and spaces. […] In the show’s closing sequence, Kamiński performs a dance with a ribbon (based on a score by Frédéric Gies), a practice culturally connoted with women. The movements are thus queerified, avoiding easy categorization and landing in between what is male and female. Whereas typically it is the body that produces the dance, here the dance creates the body, projecting its non-normative image, wedging it between the binary categories and forbidding it to settle squarely in either.
Anka Herbut, "A Few Queer Choreographies and a Horizon Imbued with Potentiality", Polish Theatre Journal
Blue (ribbon dance)
2017, performance, 25 min
Choreography & Performance: Przemek Kamiński
Ribbon Dance Score: Frédéric Gies
Texts: Derek Jarman, Maggie Nelson
Sound: HAUT
Voice: Martin Hansen
Special Thanks to: Julia Plawgo, Aleksandr Prowaliński, Mateusz Szymanówka
Support: POMADA Festival, Komuna Warszawa
Photos: Marta Ankiersztejn
Copyright: The National Institute of Music and Dance