BIPED is a full company work whose duration is forty-five minutes. Cunningham worked on the choreography during 1997 and 1998. Parts of it were performed in Events at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts during the summer of 1998 as a Work in Progress. The first performance took place at Cal Performances' Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus in April 1999. Cunningham has written: "The dance gives me the feeling of switching channels on the TV.... The action varies from slow formal sections to rapid broken-up sequences where it is difficult to see all the complexity." Many people have commented on what appears to be the profoundly elegiac nature of the piece, particularly its closing moments.
The costumes, using a metallic fabric that reflects light, were designed by the late Suzanne Gallo. At one point in the dance the men, clothed in pajama-like outfits in a transparent fabric, bring on tops in the same fabric for the women. Cunningham had asked Gallo for "something different," and this was her solution. Aaron Copp, the dance company's lighting designer, devised the lighting, dividing the stage floor into squares that were lit in what looked like a random sequence, as well as the curtained booths at the back of the stage that permit the dancers seemingly to appear and disappear. BIPED was filmed in performance in France under the direction of Charles Atlas in 1999.
Expanded Cinema mit seinen intermedialen Techniken, der Interaktion zwischen Material und Akteur und/oder Besucher heißt bei Valie Export oftmals direktes Körperkino. Die Wahrnehmung des Raumes und des räumlichen Kontinuums vermitteln in »Adjungierte Dislokationen I« zwei Super-8-Filmkameras, die an Brust und Rücken montiert sind. Eine dritte 16mm-Filmkamera dokumentiert die parallele und diametral entgegengesetzte Abtastung verschiedener räumlicher Situationen, von einem Zimmer über Gänge, Straße, Platz bis hin zur offenen Natur. Alle drei Perspektiven werden schließlich parallel projiziert, so daß neben der filmischen Darstellung der Umgebung auch der Aufnahmeprozeß dargestellt wird. Dislokation = räumliche Verteilung – adjungiert = Beifügung von dem, was getrennt ist.
Version II – eine »Video-Aktion« von 1973 mit einer Raumplastik (Spirale) – ist für den Kunstraum konzipiert und vollzieht den Wechsel von Film zu Video, indem je 2 Monitore die Bilder als Closed-circuit-Installation übertragen und vier verschiedene Tonkanäle eingespielt werden. Die Gleichzeitigkeit der elektronischen Bilder aus verschiedenen Raumteilen ermöglicht so eine wiederum andere Raumerfahrung, in die das Publikum durch die Kameras mit einbezogen wird.
Meat Joy: First performed May 29, 1964, Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris. Filmed by Pierre Dominik Gaisseau. Editor: Bob Giorgio. Writes Schneemann: Meat Joy is an erotic rite -- excessive, indulgent, a celebration of flesh as material: raw fish, chicken, sausages, wet paint, transparent plastic, ropes, brushes, paper scrap. Its propulsion is towards the ecstatic -- shifting and turning among tenderness, wildness, precision, abandon; qualities that could at any moment be sensual, comic, joyous, repellent. Physical equivalences are enacted as a psychic imagistic stream, in which the layered elements mesh and gain intensity by the energy complement of the audience. The original performances became notorious and introduced a vision of the "sacred erotic." This video was converted from original film footage of three 1964 performances of Meat Joy at its first staged performance at the Festival de la Libre Expression, Paris, Dennison Hall, London, and Judson Church, New York City.
The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe present French choreographer Jérôme Bel's Bessie-Award winning, internationally renowned contemporary dance epic.
La cuisine (Pas de deux) from Mats Ek's APPARTEMENT (2003), performed by Clairemarie Osta and Kader Belarbi, music by Fleshquartet. A stage performance by the Opéra National de Paris.