Performances & Interactive Works: LIVE at Frieze London 2019

Choreography is a helpful way to describe the world right now... One must move in order to know.  –William Forsythe.

Looking into forces and instructions present across time that dictate how we move and what we feel, the fair’s program for time-based works is again curated by Diana Campbell Betancourt (Samdani Art Foundation, Dhaka/Dhaka Art Summit).

The practice of radical innovator in choreography and dance, William Forsythe, is the entry point for LIVE 2019. In addition to his ground-breaking work in the field of classical ballet, Forsythe has worked for more than 20 years on installations, film works, and discrete, interactive sculptures, which he calls ‘choreographic objects’. Campbell Betancourt said: ‘Forsythe recently likened the political environment of today with the 19th-century choreography of the Giselle variation of Act 1 (one of the most difficult works to perform in classical ballet): we are directed to perform in the face of unthinkable pain without uttering a word.

To be part of a movement, we have to be moved, as the feminist theorist Sara Ahmed writes in Living a Feminist Life (2017). This year’s LIVE programme aims to inspire a physical form of thinking where solutions can be found and felt within the body. Exploring the expanded field of dance and choreography in the context of the fair, interventions by artists from wide ranging contexts from Argentina to Cambodia will reveal narratives of control present in architecture, language, colonialism, and protest illuminated through movement.’

The selected artists and galleries for LIVE 2019 are:

Carlos Amorales (presented by Nils Staerk)

Cecilia Bengolea (presented by Almine Rech and angels barcelona, with support from FLUXUS)
Performances: 5pm, Wednesday 2 – Saturday 5 October

Shezad Dawood (presented by Jhaveri Contemporary and Timothy Taylor with support from Bagri Foundation; featuring costume design by Priya Ahluwalia and sound score by patten)
Performances: 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, 5:30pm, daily

William Forsythe (presented by Gagosian)

Yasmin Jahan Nupur (presented by Exhibit 320, co-commissioned with Dhaka Art Summit and Peabody Essex Museum)
Performances: 3–6pm, daily

Sophie Jung (presented by Sophie Tappeiner)
Performance: 6pm, Saturday 5 October

Khvay Samnang (presented by Tomio Koyama with support from Delfina Foundation, choreographers and dancers by Mot Pharan with Sot Sovanndy)
Performances: 3pm, daily

Oskar Schlemmer (presented by Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac)
Performances: 4pm, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday

Main picture: Carlos Amorales, Ghost Demonstration, 2019. Acrylic on wood panel. 25 x 60 ft (7.62 x 18.29 m) [or, 300 x 720 in. (762 x 1829 cm)]. Installation view at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Photo: JKA Photography