Mel O’Callaghan was born in Sydney (Australia) in 1975 and now lives and works in Paris. She has recently shown her work in solo exhibitions at UQ Art Museum, Brisbane (2020/21); Confort Moderne, Poitiers (2019); Artspace, Sydney (2019); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2017); National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne (2018) and Casa-Museu Medeiros e Almeida, Lisbon; 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney; Center for Contemporary Arts Prague (CCA), Prague. She has also participated in numerous international group exhibitions.

Mel O’Callaghan is interested in extreme states of life and consciousness in environments that make ritual and resistance an essential part of their transformation, to better understand certain aspects of the human condition. For Nuit Blanche, the artist takes over the rotunda of the Léo Lagrange sports centre with a performance evoking trance and ceremonial dances. On the floor, intersecting lines cross the rotunda floor in an ordered composition imitating the circulatory lines of the respiratory flow. The dancers and performers of Danse En Seine perform a repertoire of rhythmic breaths. With each breath, faster and deeper, they move towards a modified state of consciousness.

Guiding their movement and experience, harpist Pauline Amar leads the performers into altered physical and psychological states. The result is a polyphonic and poly-textural score of breath, music and body in space.

Practical information

Rotunda, Léo Lagrange Sport Centre

68 boulevard Poniatowski
75012 Paris

Free

For more information : https://quefaire.paris.fr/121975/mel-o-callaghan