Bendana | Pinel Art Contemporain is pleased to present Thomas Broomé’s fourth solo exhibition «DANCEDANCEDANCE» at the gallery.
I once saw a dancer repeat the same movement over and over again. She began with a small tilt of the wrist. Then again. Then she added something — a turn of the head, a shift of weight. With each repetition, the sequence grew. It was beautiful in its simplicity, but also unsettling. What began as gesture became pattern. What felt spontaneous turned mechanical. It struck me that this was how a program is written — one line added to the next, not for expression but for execution. A dance, yes — but one that resembled code more than joy.
That image stayed with me. Because, in many ways, this is how we live now. One habit at a time, one tap, one like, one transaction. The choreography of contemporary life is built from invisible instructions, patterns we don’t recall learning but somehow perform. We call it freedom, but we move in rhythm with forces we do not control. Capital, media, design — they set the tempo. We respond. Our lives become a kind of dance: learned, automatic, optimized, repetitive.
DANCEDANCEDANCE is an exhibition about that choreography. In each painting, an object — a bouquet of flowers, a bottle, a sculpture — is covered with the word DANCE, repeated obsessively. It wraps every surface like a skin, like code, like ideology. The object doesn’t ask to be admired. It asks you to join in. The repetition isn’t decorative — it’s directive. It whispers: this is what we do now. We dance to stay included. We dance to stay visible.
And the objects are beautiful — lush, radiant, seductive. This is the trap. The aesthetics of control are soft, not harsh. We are not forced into the dance. We are invited, rewarded, and adorned for it. We learn to enjoy the rhythm even as it empties us out. The flowers bloom for no one. The medicine bottles glow. Everything is lit just right. The word DANCE pulses beneath the surface like a nervous system.
To dance with a government is not like dancing with a partner — it is like dancing with a bureaucracy. The movements are predetermined. You are watched, recorded, evaluated, but never truly seen. There is no spontaneity, only performance. Every step must follow protocol. Every gesture must be legible. It is a dance that creates distance— a choreography that separates the dancer from the audience, the citizen from the institution. You perform, but you do not connect. And yet you must keep moving, because stopping means falling out of sync with the system. The rhythm is alien, but you learn it to survive.
But, there is another kind of dance. The one that erupts when someone plays music in the street and strangers begin to move. The kind that has no stage, no choreography, no audience. A dance that belongs to no one and invites everyone. This kind of dance cannot be planned. It is not productive. It cannot be sold. And because of that, it is powerful. It is feared. Systems of control prefer order, repetition, permission. They fear the dance that doesn’t follow steps — the one that breaks formation, that spills into public space, that doesn’t ask for approval. Like a teapot that suddenly bursts into song and dance — useless, joyful, completely out of sync, and impossible not to love.
This exhibition is not an answer. It is a mirror. It shows us the choreography we perform every day and asks whether we might choose a different step.
Thomas Broomé