Post-diplôme 2011 : Alexandra Roudière

“My research is based at the intersection of two disciplines, cookery and contemporary dance. I see the culinary gesture as a choreographic fresco. Culinary gestures draw the eye and delimit space. The volume thus created is constantly redrawn. The shapes and lines vary and stimulate the imagination. The culinary gesture appears and disappears. It cannot be pinned down and stimulates our attention. It acts in the present in accordance with a logic of action. The smells, colours, foods, and soundscapes (utensils and conversations) accompany and provide a framework to the sequence of specific gestures involved in making a dish. All these gestures taken together form a network of exchanges, circuits, and affects within a system of interactions.

The gesture is perceived as a rhizome; a necessary means for performing and re-performing the act of making. The culinary gesture is a continuum that tells us about our relation to the world. It is part of our tradition and its transmission as well as being a form of self-expression. It finds its way into the interstices of memory and is constantly redefining our sense of belonging. The food gesture becomes a means of perceiving expression organised by actions.”