At the invitation of the Pompidou Center, Anne Collod reenacts the Blank Placard Dance (1967) of the American choreographer Anna Halprin with some thirty amateur dancers.
In what way does this performance concern us today? What are its current potentialities?
The original Blank Placard Dance was performed in 1967 in San Francisco in reaction to the Vietnam War and in response to social unrest in the USA.
It is a silent walk performed by some twenty dancers (at that time those of the San Francisco Dancers Workshop, the group Anna Halprin founded) carrying blank placards and silently marching down the busy streets of the city. When people asked “What are you protesting », the marchers answered “What do YOU want to protest”? and collected their answers. Various musicians marched also along side.
This performance is emblematic of the cycle of works Anna Halprin developed from 1965.
She explores the political dimension of performance and its inscription on urban space, at the crossroads of happening, street theater and activist art. She searches to test social and institutional constraints, to trouble the frontier between performers and audiences and to encourage direct experience as both an artistic as well as a political commitment.
