In previous work, dancer, choreographer and acrobat Diana Niepce depicted the process surrounding her self-recovery after a fall from the trapeze in which she suffered a spinal cord injury. As a performer, she has since then been searching for new ways of expression, a language that introduces the disabled body into the ‘dance establishment’. In the process, the spectator is challenged to cast aside norms related to the aesthetics of the body.
In her solo The Other Side Of Dance, Niepce analyses the history of dance and the hierarchical principles that spur the body on to movement. She does not spare her own body anywhere – quite the opposite, she puts it to a severe test. With minimal staging and sometimes biting sarcasm, Niepce shows the non-normative body not as a victim but as a revolutionary entity.
Diana Niepce, considered one of the most appealing new faces of Portuguese dance, describes her dance piece as “a survey of the invisible in dance history”. In a fascinating journey, she turns the laws of physics around movement upside down, drawing inspiration from artists who have elevated their non-normativity to artistic identity – for example, Bill Shannon, Claire Cunningham, David Toole and Neil Marcus.
In the 35-minute solo, Niepce is joined on stage by three ‘performer assistants’, who accompany her on this demanding, brutal journey through an alternative dance history archive.
