Ulrik López

Pataki 1921

Addressing the 1966 XVII World Chess Olympics, Pataki 1921 by Ulrik López continues the artist’s interest in chess as a subject and as a symbol for various world affairs and political confrontations. Pataki 1921 is an installation that derives from and expands on Cuban choreographer Alberto Alonso’s ballet piece titled La partida viviente (The Living Match) which opened the Olympic. The choreography recreates the 1921 World Championship chess match where the Cuban player José Raúl Capablanca won the world title against the German master Emmanuel Lasker, becoming the first Latin-American, but more precisely Caribbean, player to win this title. In Alonso’s piece, the dancers represented the pieces of the chess-board to animate the game into a performance.

López’s version of the ballet premiered at the 2019 Sharjah Biennial, where the video was shot. This context shifts the nature of the performance from a clearly European tradition of ballet to a more sculptural Yoruba version, inspired by Cuban syncretic practices in general and Santería in particular. The dance also becomes more sculptural through the attire of the dancers which are made with natural fibers such as sisal and jute, native to the Caribbean. The costumes follow the tradition of Santeria practitioners in countries where Yoruba originated and is still practiced, from Latin America to Africa, where it originated.

The choreography, developed with dancer and choreographer Karimé León Barreiro, aims at shifting the balance from a classical European tradition to a syncretic and ritualistic notion of dance and performance, thus reshuffling the power relations between the West and the rest of the world through symbolism and movement. Pataki 1921 looks at the long history of colonialism in the Caribbean and beyond through the lens of chess and ritualistic practices, while exploring the origins of Caribbean identity and its relation, both recent and historical, with the rest of the world.