Boris Charmatz, 10,000 Gestures, Tate Modern

Myriads of movements will momentarily mesmerise audiences before melting away in 10,000 Gestures, the newest contemporary dance work from Boris Charmatz, which will be performed at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in a joint presentation with Sadler's Wells.

Charmatz is celebrated internationally for his radical approach to dance. He trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School but rose to international acclaim as a choreographer who creates challenging contemporary dance pieces.

In fact, Charmatz is something of a dance activist, exploring the place of the dancer and the essence of dance in unusual ways.

In 2017, Charmatz escorted his audience out to the top of a multi-storey car park in east London for an adventurous dance performance. The year before that, he asked us to envision the Tate Modern as a museum of dance.

His latest project, an ensemble work called 10,000 Gestures, has its London premiere in June and audiences should prepare for a meditative and melancholic performance.

10,000 Gestures is an ambitious attempt at non-stop dance, as well as a tribute to the impermanence of the art form. The ephemeral piece is composed of the literal 10,000 gestures of the title, performed by twenty-five dancers and accompanied by Mozart’s Requiem.

Those 10,000 gestures create a torrent of never repeated movements, which are executed and then dismissed, questioning the nature of dance’s relationship to time.

Creating enough choreography for multiple bodies to perform 10,000 unique gestures in a group piece is a tremendous challenge, but if anyone can rise to it, it is probably Charmatz. His efforts certainly made a big impression when 10,000 Gestures premiered in Manchester in 2017.

The Guardian’s verdict was: ‘Boris Charmatz’s 10,000 Gestures can be exhilarating, enervating and overwhelming in equal measures.’
In addition to ticketed evening performances, there will be an open lecture-demonstration and free live performances taking place during the day. Exact timings and details are still to be announced.