LOK Performance Day:

Elena Dahn

January 24, 2026

The LOK Performance Day sees the LOK become the stage for a unique experiment: Argentine artist Elena Dahn will perform together with members of the St.Gallen Dance Company, surrounded by specially created latex installations. This will be followed by a film program at Kinok that has been curated by the artist herself. This interdisciplinary project turns the Lokremise into a vibrant space of encounter between art, dance, and film.
Dahn will activate the exhibition space with three performances that play with material, space, and the body. For this purpose, she has developed site-specific latex installations that, once the performers interact with them, become more than just a backdrop. In her performances, Dahn will examine the material properties and symbolic meanings of latex—a substance that challenges the opposition of vulnerability and strength and shifts our perceptions of internal and external bodily experience. She will be accompanied by members of the St.Gallen Dance Company.

The subsequent film program at Kinok places Dahn’s performances in thematic dialogue with national and international works. The films being shown include Paul Maheke’s Seeking After the Fully Grown Dancer *deep within* (2016), Trisha Brown & Elaine Summers’ Walking on the Wall (1971), and Heidi Bucher’s Bodyshells (1972). The cinematic context offers a broader view of the relationship between performance and objects. The Performance Day as a whole provides opportunities to reflect on key artistic themes—materiality and space, movement and dance, body and transformation. At the closing apéro, Dahn will share insights into her artistic process during an informal Q&A with curator Gianni Jetzer.

The LOK Performance Day is a joint project of Konzert und Theater St.Gallen, Kinok, Brasserie LOK, and Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, supported by the Stiftung Lokremise St.Gallen.

Program:

Performance: 1–2 pm

Film program: 2:30–4 pm

Apéro with the artist: 4–5 pm