Collier Schorr: Writing a Letter: Akerman Ballet, Act 1

Film stills from the first act of Collier’s ballet-homage to Chantal Akerman’s Je tu il elle

For many years, American photographer Collier Schorr (born 1963) has been creating a ballet inspired by Chantal Akerman’s film Je tu il elle. Following the film’s themes of transparency, sexuality, shame and love, Schorr has directed a piece consisting of videotaped dances in which she includes herself as a character alongside her fellow dancers.
At once intimate and risky, questioning aspects of age, gender and racial norms historically underrepresented in ballet, Schorr tells a story about power, desire and compulsion. In Writing a Letter, Akerman Ballet, Act 1, Schorr has pulled a large collection of film stills from the first act of this ballet. Published as a standalone document of one artist vigorously in conversation with another’s work, it is also an example of the way queer histories can be shared and cared for through adoration, adaptation and repetition.