PASSAGES
CENTRE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN
9 RUE JEANNE D'ARC — TROYES
WED — SUN 12PM — 6PM
SUMMER CLOSING FROM AUGUST 10 TO SEPTEMBER 5
n 2014, artist Manon Harrois was invited for a solo exhibition at Passages, alongside Mehryl Ferri Levisse. On this occasion, she created a permanent work on the wooden floor of the space connecting the entrance hallway with the main exhibition room. Partition (1) is a dance score engraved on the floor (2), a motif that is at once discreet and mysterious, leaving its mark on the house and evoking the memory of its history.
In Manon Harrois’s work lies the idea of architecture confronted with movement. When she enters a space, she carefully considers the rhythm conveyed by the building.
At the entrance to the art center, a long corridor lined with doors stretches from the courtyard to a winter garden. Visitors are almost drawn in from one outside—the courtyard—towards another—the garden.
Struck by this bodily experience of moving through architecture, the artist chose to translate it into dance gestures: a sequence of hypothetical movements of opening and closing doors. When performed with the legs, these gestures recall the Charleston, the iconic 1920s dance made legendary by the great Joséphine Baker (3).
This triple transposition—from building to bodily movement, and from movement to its transcription in a dance score—gives the work its depth. Today, the piece has been restored and enhanced: the engraved patterns are now filled with phosphorescent resin, revealing the score faintly in daylight and glowing more intensely in the dark.
This transformation brings a more spiritual dimension to the work, allowing us to imagine specters dancing frenetically at night to wild jazz rhythms.
Partition (2014–2025) will be inaugurated on September 5, 2025, at 6:00 pm, with the presence of dancer, choreographer, and Laban movement notator Lina Schlageter (website), a graduate in Laban dance, who will activate and interpret the score following the protocol of artist Manon Harrois.
(1) Manon Harrois, Partition, 2014–2025, wood engraving on parquet, phosphorescent resin. Variable dimensions.
(2) Laban kinetography is a system of movement notation developed by Rudolf Laban (1879–1958). Aiming to provide dance with analytical and research tools, Laban devised a system that allows all human body movements to be transcribed onto a score, noting sequences as well as their individual components.
(3) The dance is characterized by rapid, jerky leg movements, often turned inward, exaggerated use of the arms, kicks, and torso twists. It is danced to fast tempos, sometimes exceeding 200 BPM, to foxtrot-style jazz or ragtime music. Source
Friday, September 5 – Reopening event
Partition, by Manon Harrois, performed by Lina Schlageter
> Friday, September 5 at 6:00 PM
> Free admission
