Performance
1968/1984/2015

Windtables is a performance that received its premiere in Vleeshal. Boezem made the first version in 1968 but without dancers. He covered fragile music stands with pieces of white nylon fabric, which were animated by oscillating electric fans. In 1984 he made a variation of the work comprising a series of drawings of a female model, seated on a stool. Her various poses and dangling legs call to mind the flapping of the cloth in the original version. These drawings gave him the idea to present the work as a ballet with real dancers.

In this performance five dancers improvise on music by the American composer Morton Feldman. Five tables function as stages. Here too a piece of white cloth reacts to the changing movements of the fans. The dancers’ choreography, based on directions from Boezem, follow the flowing, undulating movements of the cloth. The spatial image changes constantly, without repetition. The humming of the fans and the soft flapping of the cloth amplifies the poetic experience.

Marinus Boezem makes the invisible visible. Air, and thus also wind, is completely transparent. We can perceive wind only through the objects it sets into motion, in this case the nylon cloth and the dancers.