Traveling Exhibition “In-Utile: A Choreographic Journey”

May 4–June 7, 2018
Opening reception Tuesday, May 15, 2018, at 12 p.m.
Photography exhibition by Maxcasa
IES cafeteria area (Building 5), St Priest campus

Maxcasa captures the pointless gesture

Photographer Maxcasa presents a traveling exhibition born from the intersection of dance and photography, in pursuit of the “useless gesture”…
There are five of them, clad in form-fitting black and white costumes. A few words, then everything spirals out of control… A breathless race. The movements follow one another relentlessly; the dancers traverse, traverse, and exhaust the spaces. Faces etched with exertion, their bodies cross paths, seize one another, embrace, or push away. Hearts race. Sweat beads on their faces under the strain. Costumes come loose, lost along the way…
Maxcasa

In Search of the Pointless Gesture

Maxcasa’s keen eye captures the bodies set in motion by choreographer Leonardo Montecchia (Cie de la Mentira). This hard-to-categorize choreographer, who loves to observe our everyday gestures, spent several months in residence at the University of Montpellier in 2015 and 2016 (see the article “Précieux inutile”). Immersed in this “city within a city” with its 45,000 students and 4,500 staff members, Leonardo and his performers lived among its inhabitants, tracking down that rarity: the “useless gesture.”
Photographer Maxcasa now captures the choreographer’s dynamic work in still images. “Everything is offered, but you have to seize it,” he says. “If you run slower than the dancers, you have no chance of finding your place. Run too fast, and they’ll have vanished behind a side door. Without warning, they create a dance space between two staircases or two walls.”

“Stories in the Spotlight”

A professional photographer based in Montpellier and a specialist in photojournalism, Maxcasa also works in portraiture, architecture, live performance, studio photography, and video. “I tell stories through light for the people I photograph. I look at them with a subjective and compassionate eye, remaining faithful to the trust they place in me. Responding to a smile with an image, constantly seeking the truth of a scene, bringing out the lines of a composition, letting myself be moved by a glance. Experiencing sublime moments, wonderful encounters, and unlikely situations—so as to forget nothing and make the most of everything we are given to see, in order to better offer it back.”
Traveling exhibition at the UM, from September 2017 to spring 2018.