ncca - the zoo. excursion

In 2017 the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov was arrested and sentenced. The case was considered political, as the director is famous for his critical views. The culture in general in Russia was undergoing drastical changes on the administrative level: the main institutions' administration  such as of the  National Center of Contemporary art was replaced by ex-military person. 

In such a context I was invited by the NCCA to conceive a performance in a form of excursion around the area of the Center.

 

  The format of an excursion proposed by the NCCA, I reinterpret  as a social sculpture and a form of intervention and scenario, rather than as a genre. The performance consists of two parts, which correspond to  formal tasks of an excursion. 

 

I. 'the guided movement: route march'

a special pre-engineered text algorithm of movement based on habit and automatism shapes a body from the viewers. This protocol makes the public move in an unusual way, and this choreography attracts the attention of passers-by, so that the spectators themselves become an object of observation. 

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II. 'the sightseeing: captivity and care' 

the excursion guided by the choreography of the mouvement ends up with meeting the artist. The public is then faced to a communication with the artist through the grids. the direct presence of the artist and the public enthusiasm caused by it coexist with the physical discomfort of the experience of the grid: thus, I again work with the viewer’s focus, inviting her to live unusual combinations of physical and emotional states while performing a rather mundane habitual situation .