The Sinthome Score de Dora Garcia avec les étudiants d’Art/action, 56ème Biennale de Venise
The Sinthome Score, de Dora Garcia
Avec Alix Merle, Tali Serruya, Joana Castilhos, Jony Valado, Ma Ye
May 9 – November 22, 2015
The Sinthome Score is a performance and installation.It allows a few different formats. In all of them there are two essential elements: the score and two performers.The score is made of text + drawings depicting sets of movements. The text is one of the transcriptions of the seminar XXIII of Jacques Lacan, “Le Sinthome”, “unofficially” translated into English (I have made previous to that an “unofficial” translation into German-‐). This text is divided into 10 chapters. For each of those ten chapters there is a set of movements, appearing at the beginning of the chapters. There are two roles in the performance: reader and mover. Each chapter being read by the reader is accompanied by the corresponding set of movements performed by the mover, from chapter I to chapter X, from set of movements I to set of movements X. The ten sets of movements are formulated so as to be performed by any type of person, without previous training or rehearsal, of any age and physical condition. It is just enough to pick up a score and follow it. Idem for the reader-‐ there is no concept of “reading well”; and the difficulties, and repetitions, when pronouncing certain French terms or technical words are welcome. Therefore, anyone is qualified to perform the Sinthome Score, either as reader or as mover. The performers can switch roles (reader-‐mover) when they wish, and they can agree on which chapter they prefer to start with. They determine the rhythm, cadence and speed of both reading and moving. There are no rehearsals for this performance. There is a long meeting where the artist briefs the future performers and discusses with them the intention of the piece. The main point to understand is that they are not performing for an audience but for each other-‐ therefore the performance is never triggered by the presence of the audience; it happens in relation to the two performers, they play for each other, unmindful of the audience.In the two occasions when The Sinthome Score has been presented, it has been as an installation and performance. The performance happens within the installation or, if you prefer, the “set design” for the performance, consisting of: -‐ A wallpaper, based on the diagrams of the score. -‐ A group of photographs (of the type seen sometimes in dance academies) showing individual performers performing some of the movements of the score. Within this “set design”, the performance happens in a continuous way, for as long as the audience can enter the exhibition space, having the same duration as an exhibition, two or three months, six days a week…