BOMBYX MORI - Ola Maciejewska

Instant freezes, shape shifts, and outbursts showcase a dance that interweaves with archives and artifice.

Drawing from the innovative early 20th century work of modern dance pioneer Loïe Fuller, BOMBYX MORI explores movement as a result of the interactions between the body and other things (lights, materials, sound), as opposed to movement from within the body. The building intensity reveals shapes, transitions, and cuts that defy expectations while resisting the natural way of reading movement.

The work alludes to the silk caterpillar, which has become entirely dependent on human beings for survival. Like the silkworm, the piece works on the verge of binaries, in turn producing a visual reflection of the hybrid nature of things. It seeks to overcome the binary divisions standing in opposition to one another, like: body/object, physical/non-physical, human/nonhuman, and rational beings/irresponsible creatures.

Biography

Ola Maciejewska

Ola Maciejewska is an artist, dancer and choreographer. Her works are distinguished for strong interdisciplinary take on dance, based on research and controlled structural work. Through working on convergences between dance and visual art she produced critical reading of the history of dance. Since 2013, she developed a unique choreographic practice based on re-reading iconic Serpentine Dances invented by Loïe Fuller in the 1890s. Her stage works Loïe Fuller: Research, and Bombyx Mori engage the viewer in reflection on metamorphosis, synesthesia, and the hybrid nature of embodiment.

Between 2016 and 2018, she was an associated artist at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Caen in Normandie. In 2020, she led research on the scenography of Rolf Borzik in the Pina Bausch Foundation’s archives. In 2022, she received a fellowship from the Watermill Center, founded by Robert Wilson. She develops frameworks to share her research, notably at HEAD School of Art and Design - Geneva, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Limoges, and Centre National de la Danse.

In 2023, she created a performance ON TIME with and for the students of atelier Emmanuelle Huynh at Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris. She is currently working on a larger body of work involving serpentine dances, focused on convergences between dance and visual art and transmission with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels.

The performance is recommended for audiences “14“ years of age and older.

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