tango contact candy 2009/2012

four-channel video installation
4 SD continuous loops with stereo sound
Soundtrack Joseph Doane and Roland Shlimme  
Installed at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin

tango contact candy is a four-channel video installation based on two different dance improvisations: a contact improv jam and a tango practice. Contact and tango maintain the appearance of difference, but they contain many similarities. Both are improvisational practices where an effort to connect and move together can only be achieved by maintaining and surrendering a sense of self. These two goals are obviously contradictory yet they must be performed simultaneously for the practice to succeed. Although this simultaneity is a constant struggle, it sometimes appears effortless. The bodies in the footage are like magnets, drawing together, coming apart, often maintaining a delicately balanced equilibrium. Through careful manipulation of the footage the movement is re-choreographed and re-shaped to open the experience of the dance. The footage is slowed down, sped up, stopped, flipped, and played backwards – in essence, the movement is re-choreographed and re-shaped. By surrounding the viewer with projections of the dance, the work confront the viewer with questions about how to share an experience with another body.