In June 2009, Jane Korman with her kids and her holocaust survivor dad travelled to Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany to retrace her parents’ past including Oświęcim (Auschwitz). Jane says:
The installation Dancing Auschwitz, stemmed from my desire to create artwork that conveys a fresh interpretation of historical memory. This way, the lessons of the past will not be forgotten.
Dancing Auschwitz comprises a large photographic image together with three video pieces: a contemporary performance dance, an old video footage of a dance, and a documentary. The contemporary dance and documentary video were filmed during our recent family trip, while the old video footage is from a family home movie from my childhood.
The contemporary dance video portrays the family, comprising three generations, improvising an awkward dance to the pop song ‘I will survive.’(Gloria Gaynor, 1978) This was performed at numerous historically traumatic sites from my parents’ past. The dance expresses an attempt at celebrating life, but also evokes absence, loss and mourning.
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I can’t believe people are all offended over this. This reminded me of my beloved grandpa and so many members of my family that refused to talk about the war and now they are dead and their stories are dead and that’s it. What the fuck? How amazing is it that Korman’s dad was able to go back and DANCE. To me, this is a way to re-articulate an experience you had with joy and reclaim a place of struggle to belong to you and own it, not be owned by it.
