Listening to choreography

This article argues that Michal Grover-Friedlander’s choreography Project 2021 (2021) relates to the domains of dance and of music – unheard and heard – in a new way, expanding current typologies of dance and music. It maintains that music-less choreography can nevertheless be perceived as generating music. Project 2021, the article claims, portrays a relationship of dance not directly to music but rather to listening to music; the choreography solicits listening, inviting the audience to perform the act of listening to movement. Project 2021 is contextualized by providing a brief overview of the relationship between music and dance. Two examples are considered in some detail. Both explore the relationship between dance and unheard music: Xavier Le Roy’s choreography Mouvements für Lachenmann: Staging of an Evening Concert (2005) and Mark Appelbaum’s musical composition Tlön, for Three Conductors and No Players (1995).