Drawing on Catherine Malabou’s essay ‘Ontology of the Accident,’ Meg and Frank speak about ‘destructive plasticity,’ arising specifically in relation to trauma or neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s, as a change in who we are that is so great that we become other to ourselves. They contemplate death as a breakdown in the harmonious unity of the body and Meg reflects on her engagement with states of being in her practice, whether experienced as rapidly changing or prolonged, and reveals how she chose the name Damaged Goods for her company. This recording is a series of excerpts from a longer conversation between Meg Stuart and Frank Bock.
Learn More:
Catherine Malabou, Ontology of the Accident
This talk was part of Crossing Borders and WinLab 2014, and was presented in partnership with London Contemporary Dance School.
Meg Stuart, born in New Orleans, is a choreographer, director and dancer who lives and works in Berlin and Brussels. With her company Damaged Goods, founded in 1994, she has created over thirty productions, moving freely between the genres of dance, theater and visual arts. Her work is driven by a sense for experiment and artistic cross-pollination, challenging the limits of the body and expanding our perception of reality. She uses fictions and shifting narrative layers to expose the scripts that are written not only on our bodies, but also on the spaces and landscapes that we move in. Stuart’s work questions how we can rewrite these histories of ourselves and others not by looking back, but by harnessing the potential of the moment. Through her practice she explores dance as a way to transform the social fabric and gather communities.
