"The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine."
I wasn't sure what I would name this project, if anything, when I was first coming up with the idea for it. I knew that I wanted something that embodied the sacred darkness, collective feminine power, the mysteries of the psyche and underworld. The project was to be experimental--something that had everyone contributing a segment of choreography to a pre-decided piece of music, creating seperately with the intent to bring it together later, to form a larger body of dance. Who knew what the outcome would be? Maybe to name it at all would cause it to be defined too much.
When, in my invitation to particpate in the project, I described my ideas to choreographer/dancer Jessica Jane Means, she pointed out that the structure of which I'd conceived resembled the dadaist/surrealist art technique of the "exquisite corpse". Despite my art school credentials, I hadn't thought of it that way! Given that the project was to be created in contributed "parts", and given that the project's direction is toward the dark, the unknown, the cyclical, the gothic and the experimental, I thought that Exquisite Corpse would make a perfect name for this collaboration.
Exquisite Corpse can be loosely translated to mean "beautiful body", and it is a beautiful body of dance that we aspire to create. Aepril
Below is an edited quote about the history of exquiste corpse from Wikipedia. Find out more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse
"Exquisite corpse (also known as "exquisite cadaver" or "rotating corpse") is a method by which a collection of words or images are collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse or cadavre exquis in French. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun") or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed.
The technique was invented by Surrealists in 1925, and is similar to an old parlour game called Consequences in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold it to conceal part of the writing, and then pass it to the next player for a further contribution. Later, the game was adapted to drawing and collage. The name is derived from a phrase that resulted when Surrealists first played the game, "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau." ("The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine.")
Some have played the graphic game with a more or less vague or general prior agreement about what the resulting picture will be (though such application of reason makes the exercise not strictly a surrealist one).
The game of exquisite corpse has been adapted to be played using computer graphics, the construction of Surrealist objects, and even an adaptation to architecture has been proposed. The technique has also been used in making at least one Doom level and at NYU in making films . In music, the composers Virgil Thomson, John Cage, and Lou Harrison (among others) collaborated on Exquisite Corpse pieces, where each composer would only be privy to one measure of music. "Totems Without Taboos," organized by the Chicago Surrealist Group at the Heartland Cafe in Chicago, was the first exhibition of exquisite corpses in the United States.The San Francisco Cacophony Society performed the exquisite corpse game using a theater full of people with banks of typewriters. Mysterious Object at Noon, an experimental 2000 Thai feature film directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul was inspired by the exquisite corpse game. The stage production Hedwig and the Angry Inch and its film adaptation heavily utilize the exquisite corpse format as a symbol. A more recent film, The Orange Thief, was made using the exquisite corpse technique. "
And now we have Exqusite Corpse Bellydance.