Disfigure Study

In 1991 the American dancer Meg Stuart made her debut as a choreographer with Disfigure Study. Right from the start this production - including the title - comprised all the elements of the dance idiom that made Stuart internationally famous: the fragmented, twisted body in a setting that closely resembles art and performance.

In an interview for Klapstuk 2002, Meg Stuart said, 'I don't know where this interest in distortion comes from. I was fascinated by the work of Francis Bacon. I would look at his paintings and see how he pulled the bodies apart and I wondered how far I could go in that direction. So I tried to make my own sketches of parts of the body. Fragments. Without any orientation or any specific space or balanced lighting.

'I wanted to reveal another body, not just the centralised body you often see in dance. A body that attempts to evoke a meaning where there is no meaning. I wanted to break down the body and make it weak or vulnerable. I show a body that adapts. Just like when you have had the flu virus you are even stronger than you were before.'

'I was mainly seeking a vocabulary that would enable me to express myself in dance. I no longer wanted to hide the body or myself as a dancer. I did not just want to impose stories on my body but instead show those stories the body itself could tell. Stories that live in the body. And actually this is what I still do. Only now I create more situations and contexts. In Disfigure Study the body defines a problem and has to try and solve it on its own. And although the solution may come from another medium such as video, I am more focused on allowing these questions to trickle through to the audience. But the main theme is still the same. Asking questions and formulating problems.'

Disfigure Study was a Klapstuk 91 (Leuven) production and the start of Meg Stuart's Belgian adventure. After this production she founded the Damaged Goods company with which she established herself in Brussels three years later. There was a revival of Disfigure Study in 1996. At the request of Alain Platel, the curator of Klapstuk#10, Disfigure Study was included once again in 2002 with a new cast and a new live musical score.