"Shifting Positions" - Ariane Martinez

Questioning sources and artists to write a history of Western contortion from the nineteenth century to the present day

Description

​Target audience: junior academic and artistic researchers

Program

The talk will start with a review of the various sources – sometimes competing, sometimes complementary – that have enabled me to write a history of contortion mostly based in Europe, the United States, and Canada: press, postcards, photographs, films. I plan to focus on gender, artistic, and social issues. In the nineteenth century, contortionists (mainly men) became famous with animal pantomimes. They were then considered very close to freaks. During the 1920s, these “boneless wonders” became known as “contortionists,” and were increasingly considered as athletes and sportsmen. By the mid-twentieth century, more and more women contortionists became famous. They inspired painters and filmmakers, and their use of their body testified to a progressive and paradoxical liberation of women, through which female image was altogether eroticized and autonomized. Flexibility aroused aesthetic, commercial, and social interest. Since the 1980s, contortionists have made their way onto theatre and opera stages, in advertisements, fashion shows, TV programmes, and social networks. The over-the-top performance model, however, has been increasingly criticized as artists insist on evolving in their art while preserving their body. Moreover, flexibility has become an envied and popular quality in different arts and practices (such as pole dance and yoga).