Through the Grapevine
In the duet Through the grapevine, Alexander Vantournhout examines the formula of the pas de deux with Axel Guérin, who also performs in Red Haired Men (2018).
“I heard it through the grapevine”; most people know this expression through the eponymous Marvin Gaye song. It means receiving information from unsubstantiated sources, often gossip or rumour.
“Hearing something through the grapevine” refers to receiving information that has passed from person to person, often changing along the way, with the original source no longer apparent. To hear something through the grapevine is to hear unreliable or distorted information. The expression was often used in relation to telegraphs, where coiling wires, falling trees or avalanches would delay messages or cause them to arrive incomplete; perhaps an apt metaphor for the reception of a work of art?
The pas de deux mostly deals with relationship-possibilities that resonate within a broader socio-cultural context, particularly gender related. They often indicate an intricate play of desire, one where gestures of attraction and distancing form a knot which is difficult to disentangle.
Through the Grapevine explores a different register and tends to go in the opposite direction. For we can also feel intensely alone while moving together, we are never just two human beings who can understand each other.
Artist
Residencies
Kaaitheater