BMW and Tate kick off the BMW Tate Live 2015 programme. Boris Charmatz: "If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse?"

London. On 15 and 16 May, Tate Modern will be temporarily transformed into Musée de la danse (the Dancing Museum) led by renowned French choreographer Boris Charmatz. As part of BMW Tate Live, Charmatz and his team of over 75 dancers will take over Tate Modern for 48 hours with an unfolding series of performances throughout the building. Now in its fourth year, BMW Tate Live is a major partnership between BMW and Tate which focuses on performance and interdisciplinary art in the gallery and online, exploring the diverse ways in which artists approach live performance in the 21st century.

During the Musée de la danse take-over of Tate Modern, the event poses a question: What if Tate Modern was Musée de la danse? What would this dancing museum be like? Thus, dance will be performed, displayed and disseminated all over the building, presenting individual works, but also highlighting the ‘found’ choreography of everyday activity happening around the museum. In the Turbine Hall, a series of major dance works by Charmatz (including A bras-le-corps (1993), Roman Photo (2009), Manger (2014) and Levee des conflits (2010)) will be staged at intervals throughout the day.

Dancers will also be dispersed throughout the collection displays. Expo Zero, a work by Charmatz which has never been shown in London, will include performances, personal perspectives and discussions about a new possible museum of dance. The audience is invited to witness and join in with these discussions, led by key figures from the world of art and performance including Tim Etchells, Mette Ingvartsen, Meg Stuart, Claire Bishop and Sung Hwan Kim. Throughout the galleries, 20 Dancers for the 20th Century will explore the history of dance, from ballet and contemporary to folk, pop and hip hop, as dancers of all genres respond to the art in Tate Modern’s galleries. Visitors will also be able to take guided tours throughout the re-imagined collection displays from a choreographic perspective.

As part of this transformation from Tate Modern to Musée de la danse, some performances will be live-streamed online from the gallery. Both online and offline audiences will be asked ‘how would you imagine the dancing museum’, inviting anyone in the world to take part in the action by sending in their thoughts using the hashtag #dancingmuseum.

On Tuesday 12 May at Tate Modern, BMW Tate Live Talks will also provide an opportunity for the public to celebrate and critically investigate the phenomenon of artists creating their own museums. There will be a panel discussion where practitioners, theorists and experts from different fields will explore the diverse motivations behind artists setting up their own, real and fictitious, museums across the globe.

Boris Charmatz originally trained at the Paris Opera Ballet and has been challenging preconceived notions of dance for over twenty years. In 2009, Charmatz became director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Rennes et de Bretagne in France, which he renamed Musée de la danse. His concept of a museum as the framing device for dance – the most ephemeral of cultural forms – redefines the very notions of museum and collection.
As part of Musée de la danse in London, two new works by Boris Charmatz will also be staged at Sadler’s Wells from 19 – 23 May, extending the boundaries of these two institutions to meet across sites.

BMW Tate Live: Performance Events and Performance Room are curated by Catherine Wood, Curator, Contemporary Art and Performance, and Capucine Perrot, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern.

BMW Tate Live
BMW Tate Live is a long-term partnership between BMW and Tate that features innovative live performances and events including live web broadcast, in-gallery performance, seminars and workshops. BMW Tate Live aims to reach an international audience through new forms of art, addressing audiences changing needs, tastes and interests in art. The initiative creates a new space for collaboration and a programme that encompasses performance, film, sound, installation and learning – areas where artists can take greater risks and experiment freely. The programme investigates transformation in all its guises and aims to provoke debate on how art can affect intellectual, social and physical change. More information at  www.tate.org.uk/bmwtatelive 

About BMW’s Cultural Commitment

For more than 40 years now, the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company places the main focus of its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music as well as architecture and design. In 1972, three large-scale paintings were created by the artist Gerhard Richter specifically for the foyer of the BMW Group's Munich headquarters. Since then, artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons, Zubin Metha, Daniel Barenboim and Anna Netrebko have co-operated with BMW. The company has also commissioned famous architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design important corporate buildings and plants. In 2011, the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a global initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, the Guggenheim Museum and the BMW Group celebrated its world premiere in New York. The BMW Group takes absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities it is involved in for granted – as this is just as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in a successful business. 

Further information: www.bmwgroup.com/culture and www.bmwgroup.com/culture/overview

The BMW Group

With its three brands BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce, the BMW Group is the world’s leading premium manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles and also provides premium financial and mobility services. As a global company, the BMW Group operates 30 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries and has a global sales network in more than 140 countries.

In 2014, the BMW Group sold approximately 2.118 million cars and 123,000 motorcycles worldwide. The profit before tax for the financial year 2013 was € 7.91 billion on revenues amounting to approximately € 76.06 billion. As of 31 December 2013, the BMW Group had a workforce of 110,351 employees.

The success of the BMW Group has always been based on long-term thinking and responsible action. The company has therefore established ecological and social sustainability throughout the value chain, comprehensive product responsibility and a clear commitment to conserving resources as an integral part of its strategy. 

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For questions please contact:

Dr. Thomas Girst

BMW Group Corporate and Governmental Affairs

Head of Cultural Engagement

Telephone: +49 89-382-24753, Fax: +49 89-382-10881

Duncan Holden

Press Officer, Tate

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7887 4939, E-mail: pressoffice@tate.org.uk

Media Website: www.press.bmwgroup.com

E-mail: presse@bmw.de