Joan Jonas (USA)

Drawings, photography, video-projections, noises, music, movement and objets trouvés: this performance installation is the impressive result of life-long research by dancer and sculptress Joan Jonas into the relationship between dance and ritual. The result is a performance full of powerful imagery. In this way, performance avangardist Joan Jonas is responding to a talk by iconology pioneer Aby Warburg on the Hopi Indian snake ceremony. The talk itself was a performative act: for when Warburg gave it in 1923, he wanted to prove that he was mentally healthy and obtain his release from the psychiatric sanatorium where he was being kept. Consequently, the sickbed, the sketchpads and the writing tablets form part of the scenery. Just as Aby Warburg relies on the universal comparatibility of images, Jonas draws on sources ranging from Japanese No to Nordic Theatre, and from Homer to the Brothers Grimm, in order to develop universal stories. Joan Jonas, who has had works exhibited at the Documenta four times now, has created a fascinating tableau vivant with The Shape, the Scent, the Feel of Things. Jazz pianist Jason Moran developed the accompanying music at rehearsals. The compositions, which he will be playing live, underline the extraordinary power of the performance, which has so far been seen only in New York.