Objet de Désir Inaccessible
Threads Dance Project Performance

Choreographer: Karen Charles
Dancers: Nieya Amezquita, Karen Christ Aalgaard, Sara Karimi

Join Threads Dance Project at the Alliance Française on June 10th at 6pm for a performance of Objet de Désir Inaccessible, or Unattainable Object of Desire. A Q&A with audiences will take place in English immediately following the performance!

This performance will be 30 minutes in length

$15 Members / $20 Non-members

Objet de Désir Inaccessible (Unattainable Object of Desire) features Karen Charles’ interpretation of the renowned painting Portrait of Madeleine (formerly known as Portrait of a Negress), exhibited at the Louvre, and utilizes research about the artist Marie-Guillemine Benoist, her subject, and their relationship to explore racism, feminism, identity and concepts of beauty.

This work transports us through time to juxtapose these ideas, both in the 1800’s when the painting was created and today. This intimate performance reveals the “in-between” - a place these women existed both then and now - seeking to find resolution on questions of identity and difference.

‘I created this dance after seeing the Portrait of Madeleine in the Louvre. I was walking through the museum, and I kept seeing paintings of white male persons, and suddenly there was this portrait of a black woman. I felt proud to see this in the Louvre, and then I started becoming curious because of the way she is posed and the look on her face; it haunted me.’

The piece is a trio that explores the intersectionality of feminism and race via a depiction of Marie Benoist and her subject, Madeleine, in both the past and present. Did they have an intimate relationship? Did Madeleine resent posing for the portrait? What prompted Benoist to create a portrait of a Black woman at a time when this was not the norm? What would the relationship be like between these two women today? The dance takes the audience on a journey from the past to the present extrapolating ideas about race and sex through the lives of these two women.

‘One of our goals was to bring visual art to life, to give people another access point to seeing a portrait. They look at a painting and they can maybe imagine things but to actually have that portrait jump off of the canvas and come to life brings another dimension and connection to both the portrait and the dance.’

Photos credits: Bill Cameron

This program is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.