Julien CreuzetAlgorithm ocean true blood moves

Hartwig Art Foundation is proud to present–for the first time on the African continent–Julien Creuzet's performance work Algorithm ocean true blood moves (2023), choreographed by Ana Pi. The performance is a collaboration with Performa and takes place on Saturday 7 December as part of the DAK’ART Biennale of Contemporary African Art 2024 closing programme.

After the successful world-premiere as part of Performa 2023 in New York (November 2023) and the European premiere in Amsterdam at the Dutch National Opera’s Studio Boekman, presented by Hartwig Art Foundation (June 2024), a new adaptation of Algorithm ocean true blood moves comes to Dakar. It has been specially produced for the outdoor space in front of the Ancien Palais de Justice, the biennale’s main location.

Algorithm ocean true blood moves, Creuzet’s first-large-scale performance, continues the artist’s explorations into the history of trade, displacement, and diaspora. In collaboration with Pi, Creuzet draws on a collection of movements by online content creators of African descent. The movements, gathered by the artist from social media over the years, unveil unexpected, yet intimate connections between steps that exist in different times and geographies across the Black Atlantic. From New York to Amsterdam to Dakar, the performance at DAK'ART 2024 completes a significant full-circle journey for Creuzet, symbolically reversing the brutal history of the transatlantic slave trade through a new triangulation of life and vitality. 

The performance was conceived in collaboration with Brazilian choreographer Ana Pi and co-commissioned by Hartwig Art Foundation and Performa (read more about the ongoing collaboration here). It features a group of dancers from the Alvin Ailey School in New York and is performed to the vibrations of Shatta, a new genre of electronic Caribbean dancehall music from Martinique.