RIBBON DANCE + 5 DRIFT WORKS
Ribbon Dance manifests the drives and forces that set off bodies or things in movement and the movement potential to self-generate, like a motor activated by its own energy. Although it inevitably communicates something else, this celebratory dance doesn’t seek to communicate anything but itself and the subterraneous currents that traverse it. Dancing to the beats of a techno set by Fiedel, Frédéric Gies surrenders sensually and joyfully to these currents and forces and to the ways the objects they handle change the texture of their body.
Creation: 2015
Premiere: March 28, 2015 * Stockholm, Sweden
Choreography and Dance: Frédéric Gies
Music: Fiedel
Ribbon ready made: Anton Stoianov
Lighting design: Thomas Zamolo
Research collaborator: Carla Bottiglieri
Thanks to: Ulrika Berg, Philip Berlin, Cristina Caprioli
Co-produced by WeldPremiered on March 28, 2015 at Weld.
Presented at Skogen (Göteborg), Dansehallerne (Copenhagen), CCAP in the frame of Sunday Run_up (Stockholm), Øya festival in collaboration with Munch Museum (Oslo), Maison de la Danse (Malmö), PLX festival (Blekinge), Bisou (Stockholm), Trelleborgs Konsthall (Trelleborg), Dansstationen (Malmö)5 DRIFT WORKS
Five drift works have been created out of the original version, over the years since 2015.
CINCO CINTAS
Cinco Cintas was the first group version of the piece, danced by Frédéric Gies together with four dancers from a younger generation.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies
Dance: Philip Berlin, Louise Dahl, Frédéric Gies, Samuel Draper
Lighting design: Thomas Zamolo
Music: Fiedel
With the support of KulturrådetPremiered at KTH - R1 in the frame of Dance is ancient - Context in November 2016 in Stockholm. SEVEN EXTRAVAGANZAS
Seven Extravaganzas was teh second group version of the piece, bringing together dancers between 37 and 60 years old at the time of the premiere.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies
Dance: Frédéric Gies, Hokuto Kodama, Anne Juren, Anna Koch, Benoît Lachambre, Andrea Svensson, Elizabeth Ward
Lighting design: Thomas Zamolo
Music: Fiedel
Costume: Grzegorz Matlag
Coproduced by CCAP / With the support of Kulturrådet, Konstnärsnämnden and The city of Stockholm.Premiered on October 10, 2019 at Hallen in Farsta. DAD & SON #2 (RIBBON DANCE)
Dad & Son #2 (Ribbon Dance) was a duet version of the original piece, bringing together two generations of dancers and addressing queer kinship.
Choreography: Frédéric Gies
Dance: Samuel Draper and Frédéric Gies
Lighting design: Thomas Zamolo
Music: Fiedel
Costume: Grzegorz MatlagPremiered at DOCK 11 (Berlin) on April 18, 2019. RIBBON DANCE (COMMUNAL VERSION)
This version was commissioned by the Roskilde Festival - Art and Activism programme.
Choreography and dance: Frédéric Gies
Music: Fiedel
Costumes: Grzegorz MatlagPremiered in July 2019 at the Roskilde Festival (BLACK) RIBBON DANCE
For this new version, which was created in April 2021, after a year of pandemic, the original techno soundtrack is replaced by a recording of The manufacture of our dressage – a text written by Gies during the spring 2021, which reflects on political issues revealed by the health crisis. The celebratory and voluptuous dance of the original piece becomes a dance of resistance, as it clashes and dialogues with the text that uncompromisingly points at the core issues of neoliberal representative governance in Covid-19 times. Doing away with the great divide between the essential and the non-essential, which has defined our lives during the pandemic, it claims back the spaces in which we collectively make sense with our lives and where democratic debate can take place.
Choreography, dance and text: Frédéric GiesPremiered at Marabouparken (Sundbyberg) on April 11, 2021, in the frame of the exhibition Centauring by Marie Fahlin. Presented at Skogen (Göteborg), Festival BONE_21 (Bern), DOCK 11 (Berlin), Maison de la Danse (Malmö)
