Tate Modern to Become Museum of Dance for 48 Hours

Starting from the question: If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse? This project proposes a fictional transformation of the art museum via the prism of dance.

Lasting only 48 hours, this temporary occupation of one institution by another nevertheless appears as a real proposition for how things might change, and how art might be presented and encountered from a different perspective.

An unfolding programme of dance

A major new collaboration between Tate Modern and the Musée de la danse in Rennes, France, directed by dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz, this project goes beyond inviting dance into the museum. Instead, it considers how the museum could be transformed by dance altogether. Charmatz suggests that this transformation might, in part, be like wearing glasses with a corrective function that open people's perception to the found choreography happening everywhere.

Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, usually dedicated to monographic commissions, features a succession of works that are set up, performed, and dismantled to create a state of permanent transformation. A public warm-up, an introduction of sorts to the entire event given by Charmatz, gives way to the subsequent building and unbuilding of his major choreographic works: A bras-le-corps (1993) Roman Photo (2009), manger (2014) and Levée des conflits (2010).

These presentations of Charmatz's work are interwoven with the teaching of elements of the choreography to the audience. The Musée de la danse's regular workshop format, Adrénaline - a dance floor that is open to everyone - is staged as a temporary nightclub complete with disco ball, emerging as part of this changing space. The Turbine Hall's public space constantly transforms, in this project, from the dance lesson to the performance, from participation to a party, and from performance's set-up to its take-down and then to set-up again.

In the galleries upstairs where Tate's permanent collection is displayed, Musée de la danse displays its own collection of gestures: 20 Dancers for the XX century andexpo zéro, an exhibition without art objects that is performed by key international artists and thinkers who have been invited to present their own ideas of what the Musée de la danse might be.

All aspects of the museum - from exhibition to collection to learning to institutional orientation - are explored afresh, through the lens of dance, during these two days.

Get involved where you are

In parallel with this on-site transformation in real-time, a significant part of the project evolves live online via live-streaming of some performances, artists statements, crowd-sourced contributions, and text and image documentation.

Share your responses to the question: How would you imagine the dancing museum?

Join in using #dancingmuseum

About the artist

Originally trained at the Paris Opera Ballet, Boris Charmatz 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 (a dancing museum). 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.

Transforming Tate Modern

This project initiates a new time-based perspective within Tate Modern by shifting the focus of the museum towards performance. Since Tate Modern is going through a transformative phase in advance of its new building to open in 2016, the act of looking at the museum, its functions and organisation is of immediate relevance.

Part of Le Musée de la danse in London: presented by Tate and Sadler's Wells

With the generous support of Catherine Petitgas.

BMW Tate Live is curated by Catherine Wood, Curator, Contemporary Art and Performance, Tate and Capucine Perrot, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern

Events in this series

BMW Tate Live Talks 2015 presents Museums: The Artists' Creation Tuesday 12 May 2015, 18.30 - 20.30 manger (decomposed) Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May 2015. The performance will take place in the afternoon. Exact timings to be confirmed expo zéro Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May 2015. This performative exhibition will take place in the afternoon. Exact timings to be confirmed 20 Dancers for the XX century Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May 2015. The performance will take place in the afternoon. Exact timings to be confirmed À bras-le-corps Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May 2015. The performance will take place in the afternoon. Exact timings to be confirmed Levée des conflits (extended) Friday 15 May and Saturday 16 May 2015. The performance will take place in the afternoon. Exact timings to be confirmed