A Piece Dance Alone, 2012
photo by MELANIE HOFMANN
pictured is ALEXANDRA BACHZETSIS and ANNE PAJUNEN

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A Piece Danced Alone, 2011
Installation view at Chisenhale Gallery, London
photo: MARK BLOWER

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A Piece Danced Alone, 2011
Installation view at Chisenhale Gallery, London
photo: MARK BLOWER

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ALEXANDRA BACHZETSIS is an artist, performer and choreographer whose work examines the techniques of choreography, expressions of performing arts, and forms of scenic behavior. Taking interest in the codes defining gestures, both in everyday life and on stage, her work scrutinizes the use of gesture and movement in terms of the mutual influence between expressions of “popular culture”, such as romantic comedies, TV soap operas or hip-hop video-clips and of “high culture”, such as ballet, modern dance and performance.

A Piece Danced Alone confronts the audience with a series of micro-performances – each involving an interpretation of specific physical instructions executed by two identically dressed performers – BACHZETSIS herself and dancer ANNE PAJUNEN- who, as if learning and stealing from each other, exchange and gradually modify the elements of each one’s individual choreography .

I am interested in a duality in dance: the mystery of human expression on one side and controlled material organized by routines and rules on the other. This can be compared to the difference between articulated verbal and physical languages that constitute the presence of an individual. It’s the search for these constituent elements of personality that drives me to make work.

Through technical devices, such as video, projections, or a mirror wall, I try to make the audience aware of what they are looking at while they’re watching the performers dance or strip or move or talk. I confront the audience with their own voyeuristic gaze. The audience gains presence through the fact that my shows are clearly directed towards them — made for and of the audience’s watching. – ALEXANDRA BACHZETSIS in conversation with CATHERINE WOOD for Kaleidoscope magazine #14, Spring 2012

And good news: A Piece Danced Alone will be on view at the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art on the 25 and 26 of April 2012, at the Shedhalle in Zürich on May 11 2012 and at the Kaserne in Basel from the 30 of May until June 3, 2012. Additionally her latest project, Flirt, will be premiered at the Theaterhaus Gesnerallee Zürich on May 22.