Media and dance coexist to frame an exploration on translation…

It occurred to me, at a shockingly advanced age, that my maternal spoken language (French) was the same language that taught me as a child how to move (ballet). There’s something strange and fascinating about this massive disconnect and I became curious about the space, the rupture and slippery place, that’s created when moving between one language to another. The work was created from a series of questions I was asking about what it means if the language I speak is also the language that moves me? What verbal instructions does my body perceive and hold on to? And what gets lost in translation in the process?

— Natalie LeFebvre Gnam

Originally commissioned for the Western Front in 2016, and using the manifesto below as a point of departure for creating movement, Translating the Archive evolved over several more kitchen table conversations and studio iterations, to become its more recent form, in traduction [le manifeste].

NO Manifesto (with apologies to Yvonne Rainer).

No to narrative.
No to the technical.
No to shooting at generic locations like the beach, city, park.
No to only men shooting women.
No to the heroic.
No to the anti-heroic.
No to superfluous nudity.
No to unnecessary, interactive technology.
No to tripods as crutch.
No to the male-only gaze.
No to manipulating the viewer.
Not to non-movement.
No to the static camera.
What is the female gaze?