A stool, a vacuum cleaner, a flashlight, a saltbox, skates, a French dictionary, a banknote, a plastic ball, a rug and a hair drier: ten objects constitute the material for Jérôme Bel’s piece entitled Nom donné par l’auteur. This is the piece for which the most radical and significant choreographer of the new generation was at last invited to the Frankfurt Mousonturm. In addition to these objects: the bodies of both performers and four letters acting as cardinal points. Bel and his partner Frédéric Seguette place these letters upon an initially empty stage, which is slightly slanted, so that the compass lines form two diagonals. Bel and Seguette sit in the middle of the performance space, and they each pick up objects, always simultaneously. At first glance, this resembles a Dadaist show involving the rumble of a vacuum cleaner, the sound of a hair drier, a rolling ball and a saltbox, but very soon a strict order emerges.

In this first piece, created in 1994, Jérôme Bel sets up a theatre of things, where each relationship amounts to a flash of meaning that unleashes sparks from the realm of the unexpected, that feature of the historic avant-garde. Nom donné par l’auteur has nothing to do with what the term ‘dance’ conventionally implies. And yet, Jérôme Bel regards himself as a choreographer, and Frédéric Seguette as a dancer. They both take part in the canons of dance production and casting. Bel strips dance down to the bones. He develops visual layers that explore the underlying conditions of choreography, such as the notion of authorship, representation, or the presence of dancers.  This piece can thus also be grasped as a reflection upon the configuration of classical ballet. If this consists of a small number of basic figures that can be varied ad infinitum in space and time, then one can also choreograph a ballet with ten objects. In his dance, Bel has given prominence to typical diagonals, symmetries, circles and ascending series. At the end of the performance, he even tosses the objects offstage, much like a corps de ballet that briefly disappears into the wings before bursting back onstage. We have rarely left the theatre so alert and joyful.

Gerald Siegmund 10.03.2000