Wednesday 22 December at 19hr: to mark the second chapter of Bodies Extra-ordinaires, a library & studio display inspired by Pauline Curnier Jardin’s feature film in the making, If I Can't Dance I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution presents an online screening of Ulrike Ottinger’s Freak Orlando (1981).

| tag: online
A small theater-of-the-world in five episodes, the film presents a carnivalesque rereading of Virginia Wolf’s 1928 novel Orlando and Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks. In the 1980s the film was described as the climatic summa of the performance-oriented European avant-garde film and as juxtaposing mythology, department stores, and Middle Ages.

Freak Orlando has been an important reference for Pauline’s work, and in the second phase of the research process the film provides a rich tableau for exploring how narratives mutate and are adapted as they travel from one historical moment and cultural context to another. Characters in these stories are often ‘re-clothed’: given another skin, gender, or camped-up form in the process.

Giulia Damiani has further unpacked these strands of research that knot film, artifice and acts of re-clothing in the second chapter of Bodies-extraordinaires on ificantdance.studio. On the page she reflects on these topics gathering material on the festival of the snake-catchers in Cocullo (Italy), the ancient goddess Angitia, as well as, costumes, decor and the setting in industrial Berlin of Ottinger’s film.

Due to covid regulations, the film will be screened online via the If I Can’t Dance studio.

Library & Studio Display
27 October 2021 – 26 January 2022
Westerdok 606-608, Amsterdam
and ificantdance.studio
Please check our website for up-to-date information about on site visiting possibilities

Screening Nights
Film to be announced, Wednesday 19 January, 19hr
Ulrike Ottinger, Freak Orlando, Wednesday 22 December, 19hr (online)
Marleen Gorris, A Question of Silence, in the presence of Pauline Curnier Jardin, Thursday 11 November, 19hr

Bodies Extra-ordinaires: a library & studio display inspired by Pauline Curnier Jardin’s feature film in the making is curated by Anik Fournier (Curator Archive and Research, If I Can’t Dance) and Giulia Damiani (independent researcher, curator, and dramaturg) with assistance by Naomi Collier Broms, If I Can’t Dance’s archival assistant.

Pauline Jardin Curnier’s commission is part of the 2019–21 Edition VIII – Ritual and Display and is curated by Sara Giannini and co-produced with Index Stockholm.