[ISEA95] Artist Statement: Kitsou Dubois — Une Danseuse en Apesanteur

Artist Statement

“New dance” draws on knowledge of kinesiology, anatomy and improvisation and can offer modern man the opportunity to bind together mind and body. On the other hand, science defies gravity: the astronaut is submitted to “space sickness”, an illness of adaptation. At the CNES, I have developed a sensorial and gestural training program in microgravity using dance techniques. This has transformed my own dance and allowed for the creation of a new choreographic form on the theme of weightlessness. This quality of movement links the organic side of humans to the more impersonal side of new technologies.

In September 1991, for the first time ever, the choreographer and dancer performed a parabolical flight in weightlessness above French soil. Since then, she has pursued her research at the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales in an attempt to develop a training program using dance techniques adapted for astronauts. Other flights during which the artist invited dancers and non-dancers have followed. The object of this film is to show her goals: take art, dance in particular, into the realm of technology and give it back its essential, albeit unexpected role.

  • Kitsou Dubois, France. Choreographer and researcher at the French National Space Studies Centre (CNES). She is working on orientation and gestural behaviour in weightlessness.