Rehearsel II
(Maastricht / Grote Gracht 97)
In the video Rehearsal II (2001) by Francis Alÿs (Belgium, 1959), a stripper rehearses her act. Because she dresses and undresses continually, her striptease is stripped of any erotic charge. The singing, audible in the background, comes from an opera singer who rehearses accompanied by a pianist – also rehearsing. The short songs direct the repetitive movements of the stripper; when the singer stops, the stripper either dresses or undresses. Unlike a real striptease, the stripper pays no attention to her public; she is in her own world, looking for the dance moves that might captivate her audience. What remains, is a melancholic and touching exercise in which the actual striptease is continually delayed. The blue filter in the film gives her strip act a more detached feel; clearly there is a camera (viewfinder), a distance, between viewer and dancer.