15 and 16 November 2013,

8pm : Performance

16 November 2013, 2pm-6pm  

Seminar with Peter Pal Pelbart, Sara van der Heide, Vivian Ziherl, Frederique Bergholtz

Ticket information:
www.ocat.org.cn
Mandarin subtitles

If I Can't Dance is proud to present its restaging of Guy de Cointet's Five Sisters (1982) in China this November on the invitation of OCAT Shenzhen and for the 2013 edition of the programme 'OCAT Performs'. In Five Sisters the affective wellbeing of five women is explored as they have changing, restless, encounters in their parental home.

If I Can't Dance's restaging of Five Sisters has toured extensively throughout Europe and the United States since its premiere in Amsterdam in 2011. On the occasion of its presentation in China, a seminar will be held exploring the biopolitics of the dissonant registers of 'life' and 'lifestyle' within Five Sisters, featuring presentations by philosopher Peter Pal Pelbart and artist Sara van der Heide among others. The seminar will be held as a matinee programme in conjunction with the performance on Saturday evening 16 November.

The seminar will also launch a Mandarin translation of the If I Can't Dance publication Five Sisters, which collates materials from the research surrounding the restaging of the play. Produced in collaboration with OCAT and Gold Wall Press, the Mandarin translation will include an appendix of source materials including the Five Sisters script by Guy de Cointet as well as T. S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', an excerpt from Herman Melville's 'Typee: A Romance of the South Seas' and Susan Sontag's 'Notes on Camp'.

The English Five Sisters publication will be available at the end of 2013, and includes contributions by Marie de Brugerolle, Snejanka Mihaylova, Elizabeth Orr, an excerpt from the original script and an annotated interview by Vivian Ziherl with performers Violeta Sanchez, Einat Tuchman, Adva Zakai, and Veridiana Zurita. This book is designed by Will Holder.

Special thanks to the Estates of Guy de Cointet and Eric Orr.