Saturday Night Fever

‘Limelight: Saturday Night’ is an interesting project which explores the possibilities of the city as a stage by replacing streetlights with theater spotlights and turning every passer-by into the next performer. Instantly turning city life into a show, the project features spontaneous performances by citizens, somewhere between spectacle and surveillance, as the creators explain:

“The spotlight attracted the young and the old, solo performers and couples, family groups and folks out for a night on the town. Some avoided the limelight, slinking around its edge like jail breakers avoiding the watchtowers light, whilst others bathed in it whole-heartedly. Performances have been spontaneous, surprising, and often quite touching. They ranged from the hilarious, the tipsy, the tender and the skilful but above all the romantics hogged the limelight. Displays included all manner of dance moves, from graceful stag leaps to the robot dance, serenades and passionate canoodling. For some it was simply enough to stand basking in the warmth of the lights whilst other needed to display their physical strength and sporting prowess.”

Beside the strong decontextualization and the social intermission that the action involves, I think the beauty of the images speaks for itself — compositions with a taste of romantic surrealism, taken in the heart of the city, with ourselves as uncommon protagonists in a very well-known scenario: our neighborhood. Sans Façon was born in 2001 as a collaborative art practice between a British artist, Tristan Surtees and a French architect, Charles Blanc. ‘Limelight: Saturday Night’ has already visited many cities in Europe, North and South America and Africa. If you’d like them to visit your city, please contact info@sansfacon.co.uk.