Project Description

This Dancerie: The Paris Project
A collaboration project by Tony Whitfield, Sebastiano d'Ayala Valva, Klaus Fruchtnis, Thierry Micouin, Nils Nusens, Patricio Sarmiento and Andrew Alden


This Dancerie is a multi-event, multi-site, multi-media work that explores the ways in which gay men have created public expressions of desire despite mainstream prohibitions of manifestations of those aspects of their lives in the context of Paris as a complex historical cultural arena for this exploration.

The pretext of This Dancerie is urbanization as a prerequisite for homosexual subculture and the understanding that despite the absence of “gay ghettos, ” gay men developed and carried on forbidden lives in public it cities around the world. This Dancerie focuses on Paris as a cross-road of queer life in which, although, technically, homosexuality was legal since 1791, decency was legislated and under surveillance.

This Dancerie will create a series of foci on Paris as a site of refuge for queer men and the environments they historically frequented. Particular attention will be placed on developing narratives that include a range of differing intersections of class, race, creeds, ethnicities and gender the collaborators will develop a movement based-work for male groupings drawing upon culturally specific traditions. The role immigration plays in these narratives will also be underscored.

This Dancerie is a multi-event, multimedia collaborative work under the artistic direction of Tony Whitfield. This project will be a collaboration between Whitfield, as Executive Producer and Artistic Director, Thierry Micouin as Director of Choreography, media artist Klaus Fruchtnis as Technical Director, fashion designer Patricio Sarmiento, filmmaker Sebastiano d’Ayala Valva and composer/musician Nils Nussen, all from France and composer/ musician Andrew Alden, and filmmakers Joe Lumbroso and Dyana Winkler, from the United States. Eight to ten sites across the City where same sex desire has created a shifting landscape of criminalized activity, class-complicated entanglements, immigrant freedom, forbidden commerce, transgressive beauty and encoded seduction will be the context for short filmed dance/movement based narratives since 1870. Each three to five minute films will begin with a cruising ritual and be filmed in those spaces. For several evenings the films will be presented in situ as projected images activated by passersby movement. Ideally these installations would be debuted as part of Paris’ La Nuit Blanche in 2017.

These films would then be brought together into a single space to produce an additional evening long performance or “dance party” that would be digitally randomized and improvisationally scored for classical ensemble and world pop musicians. Ideally the space would be situated in a cultural center and include a live performance component that involved local gay residents. Various forms of social media will be employed to augment and reveal aspects of the project's narrative content during the culminating dance party and its scatter site installations.

Several aspects of this project should move it beyond the context of performance based works that explore cultural identity and history. They include: the site specific nature of the public installation that will seek to revive unknown queer histories in ways that immerse the audience in the projected work; the creation of apps that will allow the participant to access deeper know of the history behind the narrative they have stumbled into as well as information about the artwork itself and other components of the work at other sites across Paris as well as multifaceted entries into the "dance party."

It is anticipated that audiences for This Dancerie will include: post modern dance, experimental music, expanded cinema, public art and contemporary performing arts audiences. In addition general public members who are attending events associated with Paris' La Nuit Blanche 2017 and local commmunities adjacent to the various sites in which This Danceries' short constituent works will be situated.This project will seek to engage LGBTQI populations including scholars, artists, performers and youth. Social media, print and electronic media associated with La Nuit Blanche and the venue that will host the culminating event will be drawn upon in addition to apps established specifically for This Dancerie.

The primary goal is to reveal the queer past and present of Paris as an urban geography that has been multifaceted, ethnically, economically, and culturally diverse while also revealing those aspects of queer life that defy normalization, concealment behind closed doors challenge notions of "decency" are tied to desire and find expression despite histories of policing and surveillance. In addition this work will seek to engage collaborative, improvisational and interactive structures and technologies to create social points of entry and discussion among various queer communities across Paris and beyond as a means of expanding current discussions about same sex desire.


Saturday, August 2, 2014

Current Status of Gay Immigrants in France

France’s discrimination against gay immigrants

by Ivano Abbadessa
Originally Published: October 9th, 2013

Of the 10 EU countries that recognize gay marriage, only France does not allow it for citizens of Poland, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Slovenia, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Cambodia and Laos. The reason for this blatant discrimination, in a country that champions equality, is to be found in a series of bilateral agreements. The governments of each country have ensured that their citizens have the same legal marital rights as in their homeland. In other words, same-sex couples cannot marry.
French politicians are now debating these treaties. The ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice have circulated a written statement in reply to Erwann Binet, rapporteur for the Law Commission on gay marriage, in which they state that the government will not attempt to renegotiate these agreements.
What is the situation in the other nine European countries that, together with France, allow gay marriage? Do they also discriminate according to nationality?
The answer is no. In fact, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom (England and Wales) do not recognise nationality as an impediment to marriage.
Of course, seeing as marriage is an important legal act, these countries do require that a series of conditions are proved, as is the case for heterosexual couples. For example, the residence of both or at least one of the partners must be in the country where the wedding will take place; both partners must have valid permits if they are immigrants; and they must provide evidence of their marital status from their respective countries of origin.
In some countries, such as Sweden, where neither party is a Scandinavian resident or citizen, the couple may marry only if gay marriage is allowed in the country where they have their permanent residence.
In short, France is the only EU country where there is such an obvious inequality and injustice in European legislation: an intolerable discrimination for homosexuals of the 11 nations. The inequality has driven France’s LGBT movement to put forward a petition, currently with more than 31,000 signatures, asking the government to review the bilateral agreements.
However, the French government is taking its time. It says it is aiming to get a better understanding of what actions to take, in the hope that, in the meanwhile, the high court judges will be able to take French law in the right direction.

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