Archive Stories: Michel Uytterhoeven in conversation with Denise Luccioni

Denise Luccioni's video series Archive Stories bears witness to 50 years of life in the performing arts on both sides of the Atlantic. The episodes tell the story of the pioneering Sainte-Baume festival in southern France, Bénédicte Pesle's avant-la-lettre management agency Artservice International in Paris, and the artists with whom Denise worked closely: Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, Richard Foreman, Grand Magasin and Big Art Group. These are exceptional, “home-made” documents from a direct witness that give us the opportunity to touch that past today. But they are also narratives “in the first person singular” that, inevitably, form a biography of Luccioni herself.

Michel Uytterhoeven is also a witness from the very beginning. As one of the pioneers of Stuc and founder of Klapstuk – the international dance festival whose 1983, '85 and '87 editions he programmed – he was one of the protagonists of the early days of contemporary dance in Flanders. He too worked with several of the artists mentioned above, and the professional paths of Michel and Denise crossed several decades ago.

Michel Uytterhoeven talks to Denise Luccioni about what he saw, learned and thought while watching Archive Stories. What do you see in a mirror that shows part of your own history, but through the filter of someone else's experiences and memories? Does the work contribute new pieces to the puzzle and new perspectives, or does it mainly raise questions? Does today's perspective – nourished by a longer biography and coloured by the reality of the current world – confront us with the otherness of the past? Or do we mainly see continuity?