Dan Mussett - Fully Automated Luxury Dancing!

Fully Automated Luxury Dancing! is a dance performance which examines what it is like to live and work as a freelance dancer in the machine of today’s performing arts world. It attempts to reveal what goes on behind the scenes in the performing arts world, and how power operates inside it, on a micro and macro level, on our bodies and in our lives. In the performance, three freelance dancers - different every show - perform dance tasks live and without preparation in front of an audience by following instructions in the headphones they are wearing. No dancer will ever perform the show twice. The tasks that are asked of the dancers draw on situations a freelance dancer will encounter in the various stages of their careers - from a dance class, to a rehearsal, to an audition.

The show attempts to unpick what it takes to set one's own boundaries and say no to things in these situations, and in our everyday lives. What are the forces that coerce us into giving consent to systems of power that we don’t want? Although it roots itself in the micro-politics of the life of the freelance dancer, Fully Automated Luxury Dancing! is a performance which examines what it takes to stand up to oppressive forms of power on all levels.

TEAM / CREDITS

Concept and Choreography: Dan Mussett
Dance: 3 different freelance dancers every show
Dancers during the research period: Jacopo Buccino, Giada Castioni, Yorrith de Bakker, Mikael de Geyter, Ine Garré, Helena Vandecasteele, Elien Devlieger, Hilde Christiaens, Maisie Woodford, Anne-Lene Noldner, Amarachi Molokwu, Anya Sirina, Tommy Cattin, Gabrielle Martin, Simon Lelievre
Dramaturgy: Barbara T’Jonck
Movement Advice: Francesca Chiodi Latini
Sound Advice: Raphael Malfliet
Light Design: Irene Cantero
Technical Assistance App: Pierre Coric
Technician on tour: tbc
Production Assistance: Dagmar Teurelincx
Coproduction: KAAP, workspacebrussels
Residency Support: STUK, Life Long Burning/Atlas Impulstanz, WASP/4Culture, Royal Conservatory of Antwerp

Dan Mussett (1988, BE/UK) is a freelance dancer and choreographer based in Brussels. He graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp in 2017, having previously studied at the Conservatorio Profesional de Danza Reina Sofía in Granada. As a dancer, he has performed in the work of Jan Martens (RULE OF THREE (2017) and any attempt will end in crushed bodies and shattered bones (2021)) and Ayelen Parolin (WEG (2019)) and as a maker he created ddddddddduettttttttttttttt (2019) and THE DATING PROJECT (2022). He has been active in the Belgian artivist collective State of the Arts (SOTA) since 2016, where notable projects have included the creation of a wealth distribution tool, SOS-Relief, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Between 2017-2020, he set-up and organised Murmur, a reading and discussion group for artists and artworkers in Antwerp.

His work has been shown in Belgium and abroad, at venues and festivals such as Jonge Harten Festival (Groningen), Europalia Arts Festival, Beyond the Black Box Festival, De Brakke Grond, Dansand and WUK. Between 2020-2022 he was an artistic researcher in the research groups CREATIE and MAXLab at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp. His work locates itself in the blurry zones between concepts and ideas - performer and spectator, art and life, reality and fiction, human and machine. The impact of technology on our bodies and minds features heavily in his work. Joy and pleasure are guiding principles to his art and life.