The drawing of choreographers as performances in museum space. Ideas and excuses for heritage education

Abstract

This article examines the choreographic installation Retranslation I Final Unfinished Portrait (Francis Bacon), by William Forsythe and Peter Welz in 2006 with the aim of highlighting that drawing as experience that makes possible to achieve multiple forms of representation: dance and choreography, painting and drawing, video and movement image. The installation will be approached as a case study for an educational reading aimed at giving visibility to the gesture as a mediation tool between drawing and the experience to open access to cultural heritage. At the parallel it will be shown how drawing is a fundamental component of the choreographic creative process and a link that permit to create aesthetic discourses between artistic languages. It is an interaction between three different disciplines and objects: the pictorial work Final Unfinished Portrait by Francis Bacon, the choreographic and performative intervention by William Forsythe and the digital dimension through which Peter Welz presents bodies in space. A further element of interest is that it is a site-specific action within museum environment. At first this choreographic installation was conceived to be part of the exhibition Corps etrangers. danse, dessin, film specially designed to be exhibited in the galleries dedicated to antique statuary of Musee du Louvre, subsequently became an itinerant and autonomous exhibition. Furthermore, this production in which visual representation is one of the levels to support greater access and knowledge regeneration, is widely accepted by the scientific community. DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.23.2019.9