Campy Vampy Tacky, 2002

21 March – 27 April 2002

In January 2001, The National Choreographic Center of Rennes and Brittany was welcoming in residency the choreographer Alain Buffard in relation to his new creation Dispositifs 3.1. This choreographic work for three female dancers and one male dancer was engaging a critical questioning about the possibilities and transformation processes of the body and the subject. From the stratified body to the multiple plays of dis-identification, Alain Buffard  was also stepping more and more on the margins of dance, performance and visual arts. Following his residency, La Criée center for contemporary art invited the choreographer to conceive an original project around the subversive confusion of genders and genres.

The project is named Campy, Vampy, Tacky, and gathers:
• 1 exhibition of photographs, videos, paintings and installations at La Criée : Charles Atlas, Leigh Bowery, Brice Dellsperger, Takashi Ito, Michel Journiac, Sarah Lucas, Ugo Rondinone, Francesco Vezzoli.
• 2 sound performances from Terre Thaemlitz at Club L’Espace and at La Criée.
• 3 choreographic creations of  Alain Buffard presented at the CCNRB (Natinal Centre for Choreography of Brittany)
• 2 screening afternoons of films made by Jack Smith, Charles Atlas and Brice Dellsperger at the CCNRB.
• 1 culinary performance at the CCNRB by Sabine Prokhoris, psychoanalyst and author of the publication Le Sexe Prescrit, la différence sexuelle en question (The prescribed Sex: sexual difference into question). The performance is made with the contribution of Matthieu Doze and Simon Hecquet.

Camp refers to notion and practice of Drag. However Camp cannot be reduced to simple cross-dressing from male to female or from female to male. Camp has a much more subversive dimension in its capacity of exacerbating and distorting the signs of clothing, acting, making up and  eroticizing what is supposed to be “feminine” or “masculine”. Camp pushes these signs to the extreme of the absurd, and somehow of the vulgarity. To the ideal codes of femininity and masculinity, Camp opposes by exploring the grotesque, the uncanny, the bad taste. In other words, Camp makes un-natural everything that claims to be “natural” as a “body”, a “personality”, a “sexuality”. Performing on the surface of the body by displacing the visible codes of socialization. Camp turns against itself the normative procedures of sexuality, gender identity, straight or gay orientations.