A newly commissioned performance dedicated to Betty Baaron Samoa and a talk with Irene Revell<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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As part of the event series accompanying the exhibition Suzanne Perrottet. After Dada, After Dance<\/em> and as a continuation of its engagement with emancipatory queer-feminist scores, OOR Saloon invites British Afro-Caribbean vocalist, movement artist, and composer Elaine Mitchener to develop a newly commissioned movement performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Responding to the exhibition\u2019s focus on Suzanne Perrottet\u2014regarded as one of the founders of modern dance\u2014Mitchener introduces another, historically overlooked movement voice into the space of Cabaret Voltaire: that of Betty Baaron Samoa, who danced and worked with both Perottet and Laban, yet whose presence and contribution have been largely ignored by dance history and scholarship.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Betty Baaron Samoa appears for the first time\u2014both by name and in image\u2014in Perrottet\u2019s autobiography Ein bewegtes Leben<\/em>. Across various archival photographs, she is visible and active within Laban\u2019s school on Monte Verit\u00e0. Yet her origins and biography remain unknown to this day.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Elaine Mitchener engages directly with this intentional silence of the colonial archive\u2014an absence shaped by the ways racism, class inequality, and sexism have structured whose stories are preserved\u2014and poses the question: \u201cWhat would modern dance be if Betty had not been marginalised?\u201d<\/em> As Mitchener writes: \u201cAlthough ignored by dance historians, these photographs serve as evidence of Betty\u2019s important contribution to the development of modern dance. Betty\u2019s physical presence is imprinted and through this medium continues she insists to be acknowledged and thereby reasserts herself within dance history, actively refusing to be erased. Simply by \u2018being\u2019, Betty queered the dance world in the early 20th century, and through research and exploration, working in collaboration with choreographer Dam Van Huynh \u2013 we have composed a vocal-movement work that queers the space as querying motion, and where the body is the score.\u201d<\/em> Following the performance, Elaine Mitchener will be in conversation with researcher and curator Irene Revell. Together, they will discuss the development and research process behind the performance, embodied forms of notation and memory work and methodologies to engage with the gaps produced by the colonial archive.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n An sonic trace of the performance movements will be presented in the exhibition until 27 February 2026. More infos about the exhibition Elaine Mitchener<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally from Southern Vietnam, Dam Van Huynh<\/strong> is a UK based dancer\/choreographer and founded his company in 2008, Van Huynh Company. As a child refugee, his family and he fled Vietnam after the war and settled in the USA where Dam was raised. His work is an implicit and ongoing attempt to synthesize the most dynamic and revolutionary aspects of the dual dynamic of his Vietnamese heritage and Western influences. His latest touring productions include Moving Eastman<\/em>, Exquisite Noise<\/em>, Re:birth<\/em> and In Realness<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The conversation will take place in English.
The room in which the performance takes place is wheelchair accessible. Please contact us in advance by email: info@cabaretvoltaire.ch<\/a>
Cabaret Voltaire
Spiegelgasse 1
Z\u00fcrich<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Elaine Mitchener<\/strong> is a British Afro-Caribbean vocalist, movement artist and composer working between contemporary\/experimental new music, free improvisation and visual art. She is founder of electroacoustic collective The Rolling Calf, with Jason Yarde and Neil Charles, and currently a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist. Regular collaborators include: George E Lewis, Jennifer Walshe, Tansy Davies, Sonia Boyce, Christian Marclay, The Otolith Group, Apartment House, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble MAM, Ensemble Klang, Klangforum Wien, Dam van Huynh, Moor Mother, Lor\u00e9 Lixenberg, Saul Williams, Pat Thomas and David Toop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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