Elizabeth Creseveur Part 2 of 3

Dear Shaded Viewers,

The NVU continues with Elizabeth Creseveur....

DP: Can you describe your experiences in Kyoto, what 5 things impressed you the most?

EC: In Kyoto I bought a bicycle right away and that gave me a huge feeling a freedom … I followed the Kamo river then climbed along the forest up to my favorite temple hosting the Glass Temple.
In order to avoid all the clichés, I’d rather evoke my perception of this particular to Kyoto notion of edge. To live in the Kujoyama Villa allowed me to fully live from the inside the succession of seasons. Nightingale comes from this.
Oppressive humidity of the raining season. Everything is full of water, nature explodes, breathes, sweats and literally captured me. I physically feel it in my skin but also the breathing, touching, fragrances.
Why are tress so beautiful in Japan spring and autumn ? A cherry tree, an ERABLE, is a miracle of beauty… an indistinct mist of petals, a flamboyant shade of yellow green and red orange leafs.
I left the villa at the beginning of winter, a veil, a drizzle. A black and white print shaded through an infinity of grays.
The full winter, the tough, the real one, I lived it in the north, in Hokkaido.

DP: * You document dance, were you once a dancer or are you still now?

EC: As a teenager several years of Jazz ("my Flashdance years!") then two years of Bhara Natyam (South of India) unfortunately I stopped because of a lack of time.

DP: You got 3 grants for foreign studies, what were they each like?

EC: Bourses Fiacre (Bourse de Recherche à l’Etranger attribuée par le Centre national des arts plastiques). The first one was given in 1997, live in Tokyo, 6 months, radical changed my perception, my relation to space, ever since I feel the physical, earthy, need to regularly go back to this country.
The followings for the conception of Resonance in 2004 and Twilight in 2007.

TWILIGHT 2008 project T.Ando

TWILIGHT 2008 project T.Ando

DP: What was your experience like working about Tadao Ando?

EC: This year my interest rose specifically on 5 pieces of architecture from Tadao Ando. Hidden places, buried in the areas of Kansai and Tokyo up to Hokkaido. Intimate journeys through architecture to precise my ideas on architectural representation through video, a specific reflexion on sounded and visual movement generated by my own corporality in architecture and vice versa.
Because Ando’s esthetic seeks empathy
Because it stimulates spirit and senses
Because Ando’s architecture is beyond the building
Fully invest a location, feel it
Take it rhythm. Adopt its construction
Listening to the silence where presence is multiplied
Listening to space
This project is for ma a call to the senses. Listen / see
Twilight is the title of this new installation.

DP: What did you do for four months with the Japanese musician Haino Keiji?

EC: Obvious, a continuation, to deepen the extremely close ties I maintain with butoh. Resonance : To set out to encounter Keiji Haino, who I’ve been listening to for years, an urgent need to physically, psychologically confront myself, to live his unique concerts/performances from closer up. Beyond sound, Haino IS sound.

Resonance

DP: Can you tell me a little bit about your project Resonance

EC: Exhibited last year at the Gantner multimedia centrem Resonance is a sounded architectural installation witnessing the expression of an entire co-propriety.

A perception through maximal excitation and stimulation using all the Haino sounds and gestures.

MMM

MMM

DP: Which came first your interest in dance or architecture and how did fashion enter the picture?
What exactly was the MMM081004 project? How long have you done work about the Maison Martin Margiela?

EC: Perception depends on the body position and movement in a given space, this is what induces my work, when I integrate videos in architecture. Dance is the evidence of this space.
The works of Wim Wendeykeybus, William Forsythe, Le Judson Dance Theater, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Pina Bausch, et Claude Régy, Jan Lauwers, Roméo Castellucci, feed me.
As for Dance, I am naturally interested in “fashion” in general, and specifically in a few designers. A complementary link in the evolution of my work. To push this notion of corporality. I bear a special attention to the fashion show, as it is the place of the “happening” where are taking shape the relations between clothes – body – space – movement. I assiduously follow the work of Maison Martin Margiela.
Deep knowledge of body and technique. Authenticity. Garment comes first, it gives to my body, just like architecture, the feeling of being “worn”.
In MMM081004, the recorded sound of the body without its referential support becomes the sound of movement. By working it as an ACOUSMATIQUE way, rid of its body, I make it the clue of movement.

DP: What did you do with the Yohji Yamamoto wedding dress with the crinoline and the bamboo petticoats?

EC: « Robe de mariée avec crinoline en bambou jupons en jersey de laine de tulle
automne-hiver 1998-1999 » welcomes the visitor at the entrance of the Dream Shop exhibition of the Antwerp Momu.
My camera touches the garment, explores its hidden pleats in order to underline their presence, unveil the intimate structure, the energetic potential of the apparent inertia.
Just Above is a tentative questioning on the absence of the human body.

DP: What did you do around the work of Bless?

EC: Invited to the SS08 show. Instantaneously I lower my camera to the ground level to capture an abstraction of movement. Trajectories, sliding, jumps, feet are mingling, crossing, hugging, dodging… solos, duos, some combinations are taking shape, a choreography.

l’Abbaye de Montmajour in Arles

DP: How does your approach differ when you are working on the conception of l’Abbaye de Montmajour in Arles or a boutique in Tokyo?

EC: The demands of the architect Rudy Ricciotti and Mamiko Hasegawa have allowed me to intervene directly/within architecture. These collaborations have widened my way of thinking, working, apprehend space.
The Rudy Ricciotti order concerned the welcoming space of the Abbey. I designed and realized Superprotection, white unit, in PVC “a conception of the being recessed in his function” Jean-Charles Massera (catalogue Collection Frac Paca, éd Actes Sud).
I have centered the spatial conception of Add!tion on a central element, a platform nesting 2 rectangular PARRALLEPIPEDES from which circulation composes and changes physical and visual apprehension of clothes.
This space happened to become “experimental”, Wendy & Jim, Pleasure Principale, Lens Laugensen have been invited to invest the place.

BORDER L'Eclaireur Hérold Paris
DP: What did you do with Armand Hadida and his shop l’Eclaireur on rue Hérold?

EC: I am sensible to certain spaces for their singularity. More than a mere boutique, a real universe where converge engagements, choices, demands, freedoms… Intelligence of a creative process as a whole. The spaces of Rick Owens, Comme des Garçons and Maison Martin Margiela, L’Eclaireur Herold are part of them. Rare therefore precious.
I showed my work to AH, he offered me CARTE BLANCHE. A true VIVIER, depending on the space properties, I designed Border, boucle process blocked at the heart of a perpetual movement, playing on the double dynamic of an impregnation-interpretation of sound and image. Visitor is taken within a sensorial experience where physical sensations guide mental perceptions. The installation could not take place in 2007.

Scroll down the page for Part 1.

All photos © E.C

To be continued.

Later,

Diane