Mehmet Sander’s work challenges people's habitual ideas of what a dance should be like. Associating his pieces more closely to the fields of architecture and physics rather than performance and music, Sander’s dance is about movement, space and time, explored through collaboration with physical forces such as gravity, inertia and velocity. Sander’s work aims to provoke thought and push boundaries, reflecting reality rather than offering an escape from it.
This is an opportunity to hear Mehmet Sander discuss his inspirations such as the postmodern architecture of Louis Kahn, the art of Mondrian and Malevich, and composition by the likes of John Cage, as well as influential dancers such as Merce Cunningham and Jeff Slayton. Sander is in conversation with Dominic Johnson, artist, writer and Senior Lecturer in Drama at Queen Mary, University of London.
Sander also leads a two-day workshop at Tate Modern inspired by the Malevich exhibition.
Organised in collaboration with producer and curator Ruth Holdsworth.
Biographies
Mehmet Sander
Sander (born in Germany, 1967) started dancing with Geyvan Mcmillen in Istanbul in 1984. He continued his dance education at the London Contemporary Dance School, California State University (Long Beach), Harvard University and American Dance Festival. He founded the Mehmet Sander Dance Company in 1990, performing throughout the United States and participating in numerous events and festivals such as the Holland Dance Festival, New Moves (Scotland), ICA’s National Look at Live Arts (UK), Klapstuk Festival (Belgium) and Munich Dance Festival (Germany). Sander′s recent UK work includes the commission and presentation of original works Uncomfort Zone at Queen Mary, University of London (2011) and Impact at Fierce Festival (2012). He premiered his new work Trust Fall at Bristol’s In Between Time Festival (2013) and performed his new solo BANG at the legendary Royal Vauxhall Tavern (2013).
Dominic Johnson
Dominic Johnson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English and Drama, at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (2012); and Theatre & the Visual (2012). He is the editor of four books, most recently Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013); and Critical Live Art: Contemporary Histories of Performance (2013). He is Associate Editor of the journal Contemporary Theatre Review, and guest-edited a special issue on Live Art in the UK in 2012.
