Quotation marks me questions how choreography situates itself in relation to the
numerous conventions defining what a choreography might or should be. Based on two paradigmatic texts of twentieth century dance practices; The Art of Making Dances by Doris Humphrey and the No manifesto by Yvonne Rainer, Quotation marks me embraces the conceptions proposed by both texts, taking their contradictory approaches to choreography as a possibility to articulate a new position. Without taking sides for one text or the other, this performance attempts to question the all-powerful authority which those can have.

For her first solo “Quotation marks me”, made in 2001 (…) Chauchat confronted two important texts from dance history, Doris Humphreys ‘rule manual “The Art of Making Dances” from 1959 and the famous “no manifesto” by Yvonne Rainer, which the heroine of post-modern dance hurled in 1965 against the traditional understanding of dance. Chauchat tries to make it right for both and fiddles with a piece that brings out the effects desired by Humphreys and simultaneously negates them, as Rainer requires. It’s important for Alice Chauchat to deal with dance history. In her mid-twenties, she sees and understands her medium as counterpart to the visual arts, with all possibilities of analysis, self-reflexive relations and meta-theories. That, despite a strict conceptual approach, her works don’t appear brainy, but intelligent and sensual, is what distinguishes them.

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