RODIN & DANCE - THE ESSENCE OF MOVEMENT

Rodin & Dance : The Essence of Movement is the fi rst serious study of Rodin's late sculptural series known as the Dance Movements. Exploring the artist's fascination with dance and bodies in extreme acrobatic poses, the exhibition and accompanying catalogue give an account of Rodin's passion for new forms of dance - from south-asian dances to the music hall and the avant garde - which began appearing on the French stage around 1900. Rodin made hundreds of drawings and watercolours of dancers. From about 1911 he also gave sculptural expression to this fascination with dancers' bodies and movements in creating the Dance Movements, a series of small clay fi gure studies (each approx. 30 cm in height) that stretch and twist in unsettling ways. These leaping, turning fi gures in terracotta and plaster were not exhibited during Rodin's lifetime or known beyond his close circle, and were only cast in bronze posthumously. Presented alongside the associated drawings and photographs of some of the dancers, they show a new side to Rodin's art, in which he pushed the boundaries of sculpture, expressing themes of fl ight and gravity. This exhibition catalogue aims to become the authoritative reference for Rodin's Dance Movements, comprising essays from leading scholars in the fi eld of sculpture. It will include an introductory essay on the history of the bronze casting of the Dance Movements and the critical fortune of the series, an essay on the dancers Rodin admired, and an extensive technical essay. The Catalogue will comprise detailed entries on the works in the exhibition and new technical information on the drawings.