The 43rd of edition of the FIAC fair in Paris will feature an exciting new addition: a performance festival called Parades for FIAC, which will take place across several locations in the city.
This year, the France’s premier contemporary art fair will bring together 186 galleries from around the world, of which 42 will be first-time exhibitors at the fair.
The fair is also launching a series of new features, including the section On Site, which features sculptural works installed inside the Petit Palais. In addition, the Grand Palais, FIAC’s traditional venue, is opening a new exhibition room called Salon Jean Perrin, which will focus on the exhibition of works by late 20th century artists.
FIAC, Paris. Courtesy of Marc Domage and FIAC.
Yet, one of the most exciting additions to this year’s edition has just been announced: the new performance festival Parades for FIAC, aimed at highlighting the role of music, dance, performance, and poetry in the role of contemporary art.
Parades is produced in association with the Louvre Museum, which will offer various courtyard for contemporary dance performances throughout the week. Performances will also take place in both the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, and other locations in the city.
Bouchra Ouizguen, Corbeaux, 2014. Courtesy Hasnae El Ouarga and FIAC.
The festival will kick off on October 17 with Bouchra Ouizguen’s Corbeaux. This piece was created in 2014 by the Moroccan dancer and choreographer, and encompasses a nomadic performance based on geometry and transformation.
Noteworthy performances throughout the week include artist, poet, and choreographer Alex Cecchetti’s Nuovo Mondo. This unique performance will take place at the Palais de la Découverte, where the audience will be guided through Heaven and Hell with the use of poetry alone. Participants will walk the dark and empty halls of the Palais, where they will encounter the work of contemporary poets in abandoned laboratories, electrified fields, the planetarium, offices, and narrow passages.
The artist Alexandre Singh has planned a series of discussion on themes taken from his ambitious 2013 play The Humans, which range from cosmology and cosmogony to pictorial satire, drama, dance, and religion. The discussion will take the form of casual conversations between the artist and experts in each field.
Boris Charmatz, If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse (2015). Photo ©Hugo Glendinning 2015 via Tate.
Other significant performers that will appear in Parades for FIAC include Tim Etchells, writer and director of world-renowned performance company Forced Entertainment; the dancer Boris Charmatz; and Otobong Nkanga, winner of the 2015 Yanghyun Prize.
Also participating is performance artist Zhana Ivanova, who is concerned with fluctuation of social and power relations within her performances; and Cally Spooner, whose work offers a performative angle shaped by her early training in philosophy.
“FIAC” will take place at the Grand Palais, Paris, and other locations around the city from October 20- 23, 2016.
“Parades for FIAC” will take place in various significant Parisian locations near the Grand Palais, Paris from October 17- 23, 2016.