Purple Television
[October 11 2012] : art
Straight Up by Cecile B Evans
This film by the Belgian/American artist Cecile B Evans is an interpretive sign language version of Paula Abdul’s 1988 number one single, “Straight Up” an unencumbered cover of Pina Bausch’s ‘Nelken’ (1982). In this choreography a man spells out Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” in sign language as the soundtrack plays in the background. However progressively picking up speed the choreography becomes more free and natural, progressing and blurring emotional boundaries between the subjective and objective.
Cecile is the winner of the Emdash Award 2012. She was selected from over 750 applications by artists from all over the world with the Emdash Award allowing an emerging artist based outside the UK to realise a major project at Frieze London. She lives and works in Berlin.
