Experiments in Choreology is a part of dance cooperative Isadorino Gore’s research project Soviet Gesture, which examines movement studies conducted at the State Academy of Artistic Science’s Choreology Laboratory (1922–1930) and independent studios in the 1920s and 1930s. The goal of the project is not to restore the historical experiment but to recycle existing knowledge and de-archive dance practices in order to create new approaches to the study of movement today.
The cooperative’s previous experiments and practices on this subject were based on the books In the Beginning Was the Body by Nicoletta Misler (published in Russian in 2011) and Free Movement and Free Dance in Russia by Irina Sirotkina (2012), and the collection of articles Rhythm and Dance Culture published in 1926. At this stage the research will focus on primary sources, such as minutes of Choreology Laboratory meetings and their blueprint analyses of movement and dance. Working with original documents and drawing on their sensory experience as practitioners rather than on art-historical generalizations, the artists hope to discover a specifically Soviet approach to expressive dance.
These archive materials will be studied during the laboratory. The first stage will take place from August 18 to September 11 at Petersburg Art Space Berlin, where Isadorino Gore will present a performance to art and dance professionals based on the texts.
As a result of the outcomes of the Berlin stage, Isadorino Gore will develop a program for the Moscow session that will focus on a collective study of historical formulas and their transfer from one generation to another.
The laboratory is part of Soviet Gesture, a Field Research project at Garage Museum of Contemporary Art.
