This is, as we will have understood, the art of Terpsichore. An art represented by fetishes, stuffed animals, frills, more or less extra toys, nonsense, models for interior designers, flea market treasures, which is to say cheap. This is the personal collection of the author of the work, Madame Geneviève Charras, who has devoted her life and career to dance since taking lessons with Jacqueline Robinson to correct her flat feet.
Emmanuel Dosda describes the author’s “bizarre mess”, as he discovered about twenty years ago in a corner of her apartment located near the Place de la Bourse in Strasbourg. Rare books and other more common ones like those from the Green Library, folioscopes, postcards, surrealist posters, comics, “junk”, to quote Robert, the alter ego.
The title of the award-winning film in Berlin about a silver bear – and not a teddy bear – is revealed through the pages, objects and signs collected over time. This is almost art brut, kitsch, in any case. This is the subject addressed by Dominique Boivin in his article and on the back cover. We will therefore reread the essay that Walter Benjamin devoted in 1927 to dreamlike kitsch.
The collectionnitethe reserved domain of Geneviève Charras, through the book, becomes public. This term allows us to define the practice, the mania and a form of artistic expression. A beautiful work: 244 abundantly illustrated pages, around ten chapters, seventeen dancers and dance connoisseurs and as many variations on the theme addressed. A last minute gift for Christmas. Or for Kings Day.
