1979, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives in Paris, France 1966, London, United Kingdom. Lives in London
Cecilia Bengolea & Jeremy Deller
Cecilia Bengolea is a choreographer, dancer and performance artist. Along with performer François Chaignaud she created the company Vlovajob Pru, which has been active since 2005. Of the many subjects she explores, what most calls attention is the dialogue established between a language institutionalized as “contemporary dance” and explorations of the body that arise from popular, mass culture contexts or specific social groups. For the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo, she has developed a project with Jeremy Deller – an artist with whom she first collaborated in 2015 – which stems from numerous languages to take a critical and ironic approach to contemporary society and its relations to the economy, work conditions, political systems and references to popular culture. Noticeably, their work contains instances of voguing (a dance originating from the queer culture in New York's underground nightlife in the 1980s) and twerk (a dance of African-American origin associated with American hip hop culture in the mid 1990s) as performed by bodies that also execute ballet, jazz and modern dance steps. Bengolea's investigation nullifies the hierarchies between the dance genres and active bodies, at the same time as it calls for a juxtaposition of movements and rhythms, viewing contemporary culture from an anthropophagic, multicultural and decentralized standpoint. The anthropological research in dialogue with the dances and settings in which they are performed is one of the driving forces in Bengolea's creative process. The results are presented in pieces designed for the stage, in actions that occur in the public space and in sites designated for performance as a language of contemporary art. Created for this edition of the Bienal, Bombom's Dream (2016) is an extension of Bengolea and Deller's studies of the dance style known as dancehall, which is very popular in Jamaica. Bengolea developed the work Altered Natives' Say Yes To Another Excess – TWERK (with François Chaignaud) based on a syncretism of movements including dancehall, street dance and music with origins in dubstep, drum&bass, reggae and hip hop. Like twerking, dancehall is characterized by body movements that reference sexual acts and are based on the accelerated tempo of the background music. What is of interest to the artists, more than the gender relationships between the masculine and feminine bodies involved in the dance, is the capacity of the dancers to imprint a specific signature on the movements of their bodies in step with the music. Through an investigation captured on video, the artists present the public at the 32nd Bienal with a work in which fiction and documentary are blended together in a study on the limits and standards of dance expected of dancehall culture. Central to this work is the act of expelling any norms from this world and reflecting on the possibility of freedom between bodies. The development of the work consists in this movement between belonging and cultural otherness, inciting political questions surrounding the culture of the body, issues of gender and identity performed by the body in movement. ——Raphael Fonseca
Bombom's Dream, 2016. hd video. Video stills.