Rehearsal Space: Dance and Conversation
June 11—August 3, 2014
Rehearsal Space, at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design (ICA @ MECA&D), choreographer, writer, and performer Jack Ferver and visual artist Marc Swanson collaborate to create an original work that is both performance and art installation, coupling the formalism of Swanson’s art practice with the emotional intensity of Ferver’s choreography and text. Their piece, CHAMBRE, will use the controversial French playwright Jean Genet’s 1947 work LES BONNES (The Maids) as its inspiration. The work explores societal notions of difference in class, gender, and sexuality. Ferver and Swanson’s practices are especially suited to create an original response to the highly stylized depictions of ritualistic struggle between outcasts and their oppressors that run through Genet’s play. Ferver’s performances use high-energy, often violent choreography and exacting scripts that juxtapose hyperbolic prose with “hyper-real” dialogues to explore the tragicomedy of the human psyche. For one month the artists will be active within the ICA @ MECA&D’s galleries, thinking about and building on their piece within a gallery space that will be completely open to the public.