After touring Western Europe as well as a few North American and East Asian cities for seven years, Gisele Vienne’s Crowd is finally coming home. Crowd will likely disperse after this Paris gig. Though not well known outside of Europe, its Franco-Austrian multidisciplinary creator, whose training extends from philosophy to puppetry, has spawned a veritable industry of book-length analysis for her performances and exhibitions. Crowd is typical of Vienne’s propensity for the morbid end of underground culture, by which she explores such popular preoccupations as communal experience and altered states. For the 18-person Crowd, the scene is a rave, with the electronic dance music circa 1990s Detroit, Berlin, the East Village. But Vienne doesn’t want us to simply watch people disintegrating on the dance floor, she wants us to share their “intense emotions and heightened senses,” she has said. To that end, the piece messes with time. The beat goes on, but the dancers fall behind. The gap is our cue to enter. —Apollinaire Scherr
The Arts Intel Report
Gisèle Vienne / Crowd
A performance of Gisele Vienne’s Crowd.
When
Dec 18–21, 2024
Where
1 Pl. du Trocadéro et du 11 Novembre, 75116 Paris, France
Etc
Photo: ©Estelle Hanania
Nearby
1
Art
Palais Galliera