Accounts of tours by associate artists, reports, photographic impressions, a review of long-term partnerships, a look behind the scenes at Charleroi Danses to find out more about the many different facets of the Choreographic Centre of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
Thierry De Mey
Working session, Ircam, Paris
Report
Last April, Thierry De Mey travelled to Paris for his next piece: a vast project that combines capturing gesture, sound sampling, music and movement. Its premiere is scheduled for the next Charleroi Danses Biennale. We followed him to Ircam where he joined researchers from the renowned institute during a working session. A glimpse of his work as it evolves.
Paris, Beaubourg, one April morning. Walking past the Pompidou Centre, I come out onto Place Igor Stravinsky. Even the fountain statues by Niki de Saint Phalle, in what are usually such bright primary colours, are looking pretty glum. It’s raining. Opposite me is the rust-coloured and glass tower designed by architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano adjacent to the Centre. It’s the headquarters of Ircam – the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music – a venerable institution dedicated entirely to contemporary music which was founded by Pierre Boulez at the instigation of Georges Pompidou. What makes it so original is that it is home both to musical creation and to related musicological, scientific and technical research. I enter the building and, following the receptionist’s instructions, go two floors down. In this underground labyrinth studded with wide glazed bays to allow in plenty of light, a whole host of people are busy in the glass jars that serve as their offices. Most are sitting in front of screens with audiophile headphones over their ears, conscientiously tapping away on their keyboards. Others are moving in high, soundproofed recording studios sheltered from the world’s commotion. Lastly there are more people bustling about in the corridors. Near the coffee machine, people are discussing cognitive musicology, interactive scores and even sound processing software. I push open the door of a cramped office where two young people who look like characters out of a computer geek magazine answer my enquiry. “Thierry De Mey? He’s next door.”
And indeed in a room whose furniture makes it look something like a classroom, yet is kitted out with high fidelity speakers, a mixing table and acoustic insulation panels, I come across the man himself deep in conversation with three others. We make our introductions. The first is Benoît Meudic, a computer music designer by profession. He has been assigned by Ircam to help Thierry De Mey during his research, but also with the creative side as well. His brief will be to translate the composer’s instincts operationally, i.e. into computer language. The second is Frédéric Bevilacqua. A researcher and developer, he runs the Real Time Musical Interaction (IMTR) team. I recognise the last man who is none other than Xavier Meeus, a sound technician at Charleroi Danses who has come to watch how this engineering develops at its source because he is the one who will have to know how it works once the piece is taken on tour. They’re having a discussion: gathered around Frédéric’s PC they’re watching what at first glance appears to be an archaeological record from the early days of the history of video games: computer-generated images in one of the most basic resolutions, balls strung together like pearls performing an oscillatory movement. The participants’ concentration is genuine: it involves physical models and they are trying to determine whether they are valid or not in terms of their articulation with sound textures as a metaphor for musical and choreographic movement.
The final person involved arrives. He’s Norbert Schnell, also a researcher and currently working on a thesis which might include input from his collaboration with the composer. In return he will be able to explain the creative process. It’s called synergy. The session proper can begin. The five men have come together to work on Thierry De Mey’s next musical creation on which Charleroi Danses, Ircam and the Ensemble Intercontemporain have joined forces. A creation or rather a project since at this stage of the “research and development” it has more to do with scientific process than a pure artistic approach. It will be clear that this is about laying the foundations of what will eventually become a musical piece centred – as is always the case in Thierry De Mey’s work – on trace and movement. A musical piece augmented or not by the involvement of dancers, this last point is still far from being clear, as are the artistic options on which the work will depend. For the time being, it’s about establishing a catalogue of remarkable movements which are likely to inspire the musical writing, a choreographic creation for the stage and multimedia installations all at the same time. The approach, very aptly entitled Taxinomie (1) du geste, presupposes a classification which, associated with sound textures, will allow a library of sounds, images and movements to be built up. A dream of an anthology of characteristics of moving: musical, danced and filmed gesture. For the idea guiding Thierry De Mey – and which moreover has presided in the past over Light Music, an interactive musical device for “a solo conductor” – is the frustration he has often encountered among musicians: one of not being at the heart of the triggering device. This interface, a fantasy in the process of becoming concrete, would therefore be conceived to give them this central, much-desired place where they would be both musicians and performers.
Norbert now makes us listen to the outcome of the research he’d been doing just before. What he calls “pendular wind”, but which could just as easily evoke an aurora borealis given that the sound texture is so unexpected, is a single file subjected to the treatment of seventeen track heads. A theoretical concept in itself which takes shape here thanks to the magic of technology. The intention becomes clearer. The conversation livens up with a well-informed argument and explanations by specialists. We are now talking about ghost frequencies, multiphonic pendulation and a fixed shift in frequency. There’s no doubt that this is highly imaginative work and the protagonists happily embark on what needs to be done. Then suddenly another unexpected sound can be heard. This time it’s not the result of a new attempt at sound sampling, but a fire alarm. It’s a fire drill and we’re asked to join in. No problem; we find ourselves at the assembly point. For some, it’s an opportunity to smoke a cigarette, for others a chance to talk to a colleague about a particular aspect of their research.
The drill is over and everyone returns to the respective jobs in library-style silence which is broken sporadically by Thierry De Mey’s phone. It has to be said that this man – someone who finds it hard to turn down a proposition given that there is so much that interests him – is in demand. To allow his colleagues to concentrate, De Mey goes out into the corridor where he immediately starts pacing up and down, making expansive gestures as if he was using this choreography to give the person at the other end a clearer explanation. This is about another project, one which IRI (2), another organisation next to the Pompidou Centre, has asked him to do that involves creating a catalogue of movements which, linked up to a kinetic system, are like stimuli giving access to a database of dance films. Later on in the afternoon, documentation and iconographic equipment will have to be sent over immediately to the Centre des Arts d’Enghien-les-Bains. They’re putting his dance films on the bill and offering him an opportunity to fill the public space using a selection of interventions combining dance, cinema and visual arts. The day before we had also been to the Wallonia-Brussels Centre for the private viewing of his installation Rémanences, the singularity of which is to capture the trace of movement using thermal cameras. It is clear that the man is not short of things to do. In June, he will be back at the Centre Pompidou again for a fortnight during the ManiFeste academy festival on which Ircam has also asked him to be a consultant to young contemporary composers who will be presenting their works. He’ll also be meeting up there with Thomas Hauert who worked with him on his film La Valse and who also happens to be on the bill at the festival.
But before that, on 5 June, there will be a three-way meeting of the partners on the Taxinomie project. They will therefore have to determine precisely what direction the research should go in and what stages there will be as markers for the creation of this ambitious project with a wide variety of possibilities which will end in a stage production at the next Charleroi Danses Biennale in November 2013. This man in a hurry will therefore have to take some time out to make a few decisions.
Ivo Ghizzardi,
April 2012
April 2012
(1) Taxonomy is the academic discipline of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The groups created through this process are referred to as taxa (singular taxon). Source: Wikipedia
(2) Institute of Research and Innovation created at the instigation of philosopher Bernard Stiegler whose vocation is to “anticipate, accompany and analyse the transformation of cultural practices enabled by digital technologies, and sometimes even to contribute to their very emergence”.
TOURS | DABA MAROC
On Marche,
Marrakech international contemporary dance festival
Impressions
An enthusiastic partner of DABA Maroc, Charleroi Danses was committed to increasing its involvement, dedicating a significant part of its programme to it in November 2012, establishing an artistic exchange project between Belgium and Morocco with the BIJ and Les Halles de Schaerbeek, Intérieur/Extérieur, and also – in anticipation of events to come – supporting the last On Marche festival in Marrakech. Envisaging the provision of ongoing support to the festival, the Choreographic Centre assigned three of its artists and a technical team to the festival. Here is an account of this first collaboration by one of our audience development officers.
The initiative to support one of the few contemporary dance festivals in Morocco came from Vincent Thirion. Self-funding and not in receipt of any grants, the symbolically named On Marche festival has been run for the past seven years by the Anania company founded by choreographers Taoufiq Izzediou, Saïd Ait El Moumen and Bouchra Ouizgen. The three artists are known in Europe, but in their own country there is a lack of organisations, grants and support for an art form which is still far from being an established part of what goes on here. By opting to make their festival free of charge, they also demonstrate a genuine approach to popularising contemporary dance.
Charleroi Danses decided to support the festival by having three of its shows plus dance films on the bill and offering its team invaluable technical assistance. Accompanied by three technical staff, a team of fifteen made their way to Marrakech.
This is the seventh time the festival has been held and it takes over several venues in Marrakech: the Institut Français, the Dar Takkafa theatre, the École Supérieure des Arts Visuels, the monumental Palais des Congrès and of course the indispensable Jamaâ El Fna, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The various encounters and meetings will take place at the Café du Livre, a small, shaded, friendly place in the Gueliz neighbourhood packed with books for its clientele to read.
Marrakech is first and foremost the Medina of course: the old city with its tangled lanes and maze-like souks emerging onto Jamaâ el Fna whose entrance is marked by the Koutoubia minaret. But it is also the new city which unfurls outside the city walls into several neighbourhoods. The Hivernage district with its imposing hotel buildings and the Gueliz district, the nerve centre developed under the French protectorate, are two important hubs in this modern city. While the old city offers a glimpse of the initial topography of medieval cities in the Maghreb (countless riads plus narrow, winding streets that offer welcome shade during the hottest parts of the day), the newer districts are similar to our western Mediterranean cities, with several parks, gardens and olive groves, cafés with sunny terraces, wide avenues with extensive vistas that allow you to see the outlines of the Atlas mountains’ snow-capped peaks.
The city is also criss-crossed by little yellow Fiats, collective taxis which you stop on the roadside and which – in principle at least – operate a democratic pricing policy. This is primarily how we are get to festival venues, some of which are quite a way away.
The first encounter with Charleroi Danses consists of a screening at the École Supérieure des Arts Visuels (ESAV) of a selection of Thierry De Mey’s films: from Love Sonnets, made in 1994, up to more recent productions such as One flat thing, reproduced choreographed by William Forsythe by way of Dom Svobode. With the feel for education he is known for, Thierry De Mey is going to give a commentary on his films to an audience consisting of students and outside spectators, and talk about what made him the film-maker of dance for which he is famous. Throughout the festival, his triptych consisting of the visual polyphony Danser Ravel et Debussy will be screened on a loop. On the final Friday, he will be running a workshop for ESAV students. The second artistic encounter with Charleroi Danses is Les Beaux Jours, a solo by Pierre Droulers inspired by the work of the painter Balthus. The performance is scheduled to be given in the outside courtyard of the Institut Français early on Friday evening. There is no audio for this Marrakech performance, the lightness of this solo performed by Katrien Vandergooten fills the beauty of the location naturally, a kind of open air amphitheatre beneath a gradually darkening sky as twilight falls.
On the Saturday, the last day of the festival and in a way its grand finale, the Dar Takkafa theatre is hosting Hurt[ing] by Carmen Blanco Principal, artist-in-residence at Charleroi Danses, and the latest version of Pierre Droulers’ de l’air et du vent. The technical and logistical limitations facing the teams are not insignificant. Indeed, while the theatre is a charming, well-designed venue, it does not have a regular programme and therefore has no permanent team. The technical staff and production assistants are going to have to use all their ingenuity to be able to offer the artists the minimum quality required.
Hurt[ing] takes over the theatre lobby. Originally conceived in the PBA hangar in Charleroi during the Bienniale, in the space of a day the piece has to be adapted to a venue without an electricity supply and that echoes alarmingly. Carmen works on a more intimate version for this tour and adapts it to this new configuration by exactly copying the different confessions of which Hurt[ing] is comprised for the venue. It would seem to be attempting the impossible, but it’s definitely a success.
For my part I don’t know how the technical staff produce the sound and lighting to allow de l’air et du vent to be performed so well given the technical means available. There is no sign of this in the piece and this performance is no different from earlier ones given at La Raffinerie and elsewhere in Europe. And the audience is justified in giving the piece encores, clapping their hands in a syncopated rhythm as is the custom here.
What we also like about it is how diverse and receptive the audience is. What we call audience development just doesn’t happen here, but while the audience is not very familiar with contemporary forms of expression, it has come en masse, reveals its curiosity and often reacts with spontaneous enthusiasm to what is on offer. It also seems as if the festival is surely but slowly becoming a fixture in the cultural life of Marrakech and is building up a loyal following.
We do not see much of the city itself, but the vitality, dynamism and enthusiasm of the local volunteer artistic team makes us forget the sometimes trickier sides of this trip. Perhaps Thierry De Mey, who would have loved to explore the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, will get another opportunity to do so at the eighth On Marche festival in 2013?
Anne Michalakoudis,
March 2012
PARTNERSHIP | PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
Hip Hop, du Tremplin à la Scène
Review
The adventure began in late 2009. With hip hop rarely featuring on conventional stages, six cultural organisations led by the choreographer Jean-Claude Pambè Wayack (1) decided to join forces and develop some professional training for young hip hop dancers. For Charleroi Danses – one of the partners on the project – it was an opportunity to remember that the highly elaborate and codified grammar of hip hop is also finding its way into contemporary dance. The result was a premiere in Belgium. This long-term experiment concluded in March and April 2012 with a five-date tour in Brussels, Charleroi, Mons and Namur. Director Carmen Blanco Principal, artist-in-residence at Charleroi Danses from 2009 to 2012, was one of the professionals supervising the project. She tells us about the experience which altered her view of this particular culture.
I didn’t know much about hip hop. Living in Brussels as I do, it made me think of the young people practising in the Ravenstein shopping arcade. I’d watch them from the pavement opposite while I smoked my cigarette waiting to go in and see a show at the Centre for Fine Arts. Other than their technical prowess, what I loved was this appropriation of the public space. There was also the end of children’s courses at the CCJF when I went to see my nephews. And then the events organised by the Jacques Gueux Foundation, Lezarts Urbains, Jacques Franck, Les Halles and La Raffinerie which I was aware of but didn’t really ever go to much. And of course, the memory of certain images from David LaChapelle’s film Rize. And then there was also Clash, a show about adolescence which I staged with two young men who identified with this culture: one had chosen to express himself in rap, the other in dance. In short, I’d always had a liking for this movement, coming close as it has to being banned for its use of graffiti or when it fills the public space with dance. Perhaps because I’d grown up in a working class neighbourhood, I saw the possibilities of expression and assertion it offered so many young people. What I liked less was the thoughtless chauvinism I saw in it and the attitude some of them had as if they’ve come out of American ghettos. I also found the inventiveness they used in renaming themselves funny: Akhenaton and Khéops, calling yourself Diam’s when your real name is Mélanie Georgiades, Joey Starr when you’re called Didier Morville or Sinik when your name is Thomas Gérard.
When Angélique Wilkie (2) suggested I join her to run drama sessions on this course, I agreed mainly for the pleasure of working with her again. Even so I had some big questions. Does a movement so relevant to the public space have to take a more institutional path? Does it even have a place in theatres? Isn’t showing it in theatres a misrepresentation? Why should choreographers or directors control this form of expression when its origin lies in urgency? I finally agreed to do it by telling myself that we could pass on tools to young dancers and that afterwards they’d be free to include them, transform them and make of them whatever seemed appropriate. Both of us have several years’ experience in performing arts. Perhaps we could help each of them develop a personal artistic approach and methods of their own.
One day a week for eleven weeks spread out over two years, we gave dramaturgical support to these young dancers. We knew that the aim of the training planned for the participants was to come up with short pieces, and with this in mind we developed a programme that was both theoretical and practical. The theoretical part was based on analysing shows they were invited to see. It was about dissecting the different aspects involved in the composition of a show: themes, composition, management of the space, body movements, stage design, lighting, music, sound... ultimately, what it is that makes its creator stand out. In parallel, there were questions they had to answer individually, specifying their own definition of hip hop, what they could not give up, and therefore affirming what would make them stand out as a future creator. In the practical part, we set up work in which they created as a group, taking turns to be creators and dancers. It was a way of watching each team at work, exploring autonomy as well as group dynamics.
An opportunity soon came to present this work in public. Alain Lapiower (3), who didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity, suggested we present an element of the work during the festival celebrating the 10th anniversary of Lezarts Urbains, a festival held symbolically at the Centre for Fine Arts opposite this same Ravenstein shopping arcade where the movement first arrived in Brussels. In this setting there was expectation and curiosity but we were only half way through the Hip Hop, du Tremplin à la Scène project. After a week of rehearsals, a first short piece ten minutes long was presented, a group piece based on the composition exercises we’d developed with them. It was a huge success.
Three pieces were then created. Of the twenty-five candidates selected, eleven stuck it out until the end. With participants giving up for a variety of reasons and selection being project based, two short pieces and a group piece were produced. Les absents ont toujours tort(illa) by Antoine and Arthur Pedros and Drip Hop by Vanarith Kang showed two very different worlds, both in their approach and creative process as well as in their aesthetics. But even so they had one thing in common: the use of hip hop movements to serve an intention, an aesthetic and a work of creation. Finally the group piece, Ce que je porte avec moi. Its title (What I carry with me) comes from questions posed during the dramaturgy sessions and it allowed us to continue on stage the teaching work that began during training.
The performances and tours in different partner and co-producer venues also gave them an opportunity to work on adapting these pieces for different spaces that don’t always have the same characteristics: adapting the energy, taking into account the stage/theatre relationship specific to each space, while trying to retain the spirit of the pieces.
All those who had supported them throughout the creative process for these projects needed patience as they attempted to pass on constancy and strictness, listening to their propositions as much as possible and helping them make their propositions real and realisable. For the young dancers who were given the opportunity to do this training, in addition to perfecting their different hip hop dance styles and being introduced to writing, directing, dramaturgy, set design, lighting and production, this experience allowed them to live through an entire creative process from start to finish... and to realise that the objective was also about how they got there.
Jean-Claude Pambè who had devised this project did not see its outcome because he died in the middle of it. His words, his energy, his openness to other types of dance and artistic disciplines accompanied the project throughout. Beyond gaining some official recognition, this pilot project will have had a “contamination effect” on the entire hip hop environment in Belgium, allowing people to understand that beyond the battles and shows which will always exist, sharing can also be part of hip hop’s creative work. Hip hop dance is not just wonderful, impulsive and spontaneous. That’s far too simplistic a statement.
This adventure ends with its memories, its questions, its answers ... as Anne Closset’s film (4) demonstrates so well. The future is preparing to make way for dreams, desires and projects.
This adventure ends with its memories, its questions, its answers ... as Anne Closset’s film (4) demonstrates so well. The future is preparing to make way for dreams, desires and projects.
Carmen Blanco Principal,
March 2012
March 2012
(1) A dancer, choreographer and teacher originally from Cameroon, he came into contact with the hip hop movement and its dance form at a very early age and became one of its principal ambassadors in France. In 2004, he met Sandrine Mathevon, a programmer at the CCJF, who offered him a residence. Their reflections on the development of the Belgian hip hop scene gave rise to Hip Hop, du Tremplin à la Scène. Jean-Claude Pambè Wayack died in 2011.
(2) A dancer and teacher, she has taught in several dance companies. She sung in a number of groups, including Zap Mama.
(3) A director of the non-profit-making association Lezarts Urbains, he was one of the first in Belgium to recognise the importance to contemporary culture of the hip hop movement and to promote its many forms of expression (dance, rap, graffiti etc.)
(4) Get Your Funk! is a film covering this experience in the words of the main protagonists. Broadcast on 11 and 13 April 2012 on Arte Belgique and La Deux-RTBF respectively as part of the “Quai des Belges” programme.
DVD available from athanor-production.be, cvb-videp.be, La boutique.rtbf.be
NEW WORK
Pierre Droulers
Portfolio
In late February 2012, Pierre Droulers travelled to Japan with his next creation in mind to take the opportunity to meet several artists and talk to them about light. The light of the world and all possible kinds of light as well. The kinds that produce a resonance between the subject’s exterior and its interior. There was also a focus on light as solar energy giving power and vitality, light that illuminates the a person’s face from the inside, the ambiguity of full exposure which takes away any mystery, and the intrinsic link between light and shade. An overview in images.
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TOURS
Kiss & Cry,
Festival Santiago a Mil!
Report
Last January, thanks to Michèle Anne De Mey’s intervention, Charleroi Danses was invited to the Santiago a Mil! festival in Chile’s capital where she had gone with Jaco Van Dormael to present Kiss & Cry. The trip was proof that the imagination can be both a specific cultural characteristic and a universal paradigm.
“Julien, can you light up the stars?” “It’s not working! Actually, there’s no battery. I’ll just go and get one.”
The scene is unfolding on the stage of the Teatro Municipal de Las Condes in Santiago, Chile. Nicolas Olivier and Julien Lambert, lighting designer and cameraman respectively on Kiss & Cry, are carrying out the final lighting checks ahead of the dress rehearsal scheduled for 2pm. The piece – which involves a hand dance, a theatre of objects and ephemeral filming – has been invited for three consecutive dates by the Santiago a Mil! festival, one of Latin America’s leading performing arts festivals.
The scene is unfolding on the stage of the Teatro Municipal de Las Condes in Santiago, Chile. Nicolas Olivier and Julien Lambert, lighting designer and cameraman respectively on Kiss & Cry, are carrying out the final lighting checks ahead of the dress rehearsal scheduled for 2pm. The piece – which involves a hand dance, a theatre of objects and ephemeral filming – has been invited for three consecutive dates by the Santiago a Mil! festival, one of Latin America’s leading performing arts festivals.
The majority of Charleroi Danses’ team – technicians, performers and support personnel –arrived the day before. The journey from the airport to the hotel gave them an opportunity to get a feel for the city, one that proclaims its modernity out loud and appears to be expanding if the number of skyscrapers under construction is anything to go by. A paradise for architects reflected in the diversity of forms and apparent desire for verticality. A city that reflects the economic growth enjoyed by the country for some years now, focused entirely on the future and keen to distance itself from a painful and all too recent past. With our rooms located and cases unpacked, we meet up on a terrace to have a drink, take a breather, get the team together and share our enthusiastic first impressions of the city and the country.
Back to the Teatro Municipal. There are just a few hours left until the premiere and there’s still quite a lot to be done. The tension – although contained – is palpable because the festival has allotted just one day instead of the usual two for things to get set up and the dress rehearsal is being held on the same day as the premiere. It will be a little tougher than usual, but there’s no question of not making a good job of it.
Julien and Nicolas have gone for lunch. Now it’s the turn of sound engineer Boris Cekevda: “From the point of view of acoustics, it’s one of the best theatres we’ve been to since the piece was created. They haven’t skimped on any equipment,” he says cheerfully as he starts balancing the sound. The expression on his face shows what a delight it is for him to work in such a high-quality technical environment. In fact, the Teatro Municipal de Las Condes – a stunning building that looks like a proscenium theatre reworked by a minimalist architect – opened less than eighteen months earlier, evidence of the expansion of the city’s cultural offering which just twenty years ago was almost non-existent. Jaco Van Dormael has just arrived. He sits down. Alone in the tiers, occupying one of the theatre’s 750 or so seats, he calmly and precisely checks the sound and the piece’s voiceover in this venue he is still discovering. Boris, like a completely focused worker ant, endlessly tos and fros between the theatre and the sound booth, worrying about what Jaco is thinking. The narrator’s voice soon fills the space with his low tessitura and very Latin warmth. It’s disconcerting to hear Thomas Gunzig’s words being spoken in Spanish. The effect is startling because the voice and the musicality of the language confer another tonality on the story and lend it a new dramatic force which had not been there until then. A man of a few words but of consummate precision, Jaco Van Dormael gives some a few instructions to Boris: “Not too much bass, otherwise you can keep that colour of voice.” He seems happy.
Michèle Anne De Mey appears. She’s back from the market where, accompanied by Grégory Grosjean, her assistant and partner in the piece, she has selected with almost childlike joy her vegetables to “do the gardening” as she likes to call it. Vital set elements, these will later be the cause of an interruption during the dress rehearsal because they’re bigger than usual – different latitudes produce a different type of vegetable garden – and they’re too prominent for the image and change how it is framed. As the piece is acted live from beginning to end, everything has to be incredibly precise. The rest of the company arrives. The stage which just a short while ago seemed too big is completely invaded now that the whole team is there. There is no nook, no ounce of space that has not been taken over by a set element, a technical device or artistic personnel in accordance with an extremely meticulous plan. The rehearsal can now begin…
Second sun
Some ninety minutes later, Jaco calls the whole team together for a ritual powwow, an informal debrief during which everyone shares their remarks, observations, feelings and other comments. The atmosphere is one of concentration. No detail that does not match Jaco’s idea of the piece – the great orchestrator directing moves on stage – escapes his heightened sense of observation: “The drawer was a bit late.” “And when the camera zooms in, I’d like the man with the gun not to appear in the foreground.” “I was late on the second sun,” comments Nicolas. “No, it was me,” adds Michèle Anne. All incomprehensible to anyone who happens to be walking past and who is unaware of quite how poetic the piece is. “And you’ll have to hide that emergency exit,” Jaco orders, pointing to a corner of the theatre. “That’s still something we have to sort out,” a voice replies. “Well it’ll have to be sorted out”. The message couldn’t be any clearer. The afternoon will pass making corrections and doing the final set up. Everyone is asked to be back by 6pm.
In the lift taking us up to the surface and towards Santiago’s sun (yes, it’s summer here), we bump into Pierrot Garnier, the stage manager and manipulator of objects in the stage darkness. He says that some elements used in the set have been broken in transit from Charleroi to Santiago and that if the piece is going to be touring to such far-off places again then they’re going to have to review how they pack things. The aquarium from the bathroom scene is broken. “Fortunately we had one in reserve. It’s smaller, but we adapted the set so it would fit.” During the performance we search hard but in vain to spot any differences from the original set. There’s no point because this is a work of absolute precision.
Lascia che io pianga
It’s 8pm and the audience is gathering on the huge glazed patio still being caressed by the final rays of the sun. The piece is intriguing and people are curious to see it. What kind of dance show is this where the main characters are hands? The world of the Belgians is definitely a strange one…
The curtain rises. Emerging from the half-light, the silhouettes of two atypical dancers are formed in the light: two hands embracing, lightly touching and caressing one another with disconcerting and unsuspected tenderness, expressing more effectively than a whole body can the feeling of love, its exiles, its joys and its sorrows. To Lascia ch’io pianga, an aria from Handel’s Rinaldo in a very moving performance by Cecilia Bartoli, they outline arabesques and other sensual volute while their doubles are projected onto the big screen. The magic of Nanodanse has started to take effect. From now on, the romantic breath of the piece keeps the audience spellbound. Suddenly, something remarkable happens. Towards the end of the opening scene, when the voice embarks on this tale of memory, love and forgetting, one word rings out, a word heard in each of the previous performances, but which in this place and at this moment takes on an unexpected resonance: “desaparecidos”, the disappeared. Although invisible, the explosion is palpable. A wave of emotion engulfs the audience. “Desaparecidos”, a word laden with meaning in this country which echoes with the voices of all those who were snatched in the night of nameless terror which came crashing down on this country on another 11 September, the one in 1973. One word which alone sums up all of the horrors perpetrated by Augusto Pinochet Ugarte’s military regime. One of its distinctive features was designed to practise the forced disappearance of political opponents systematically and on a huge scale. A process, beyond the torture victims themselves, that removed any trace of the offence. A proven technique of causing double suffering, wounding the families and friends of the victims twice: the first time by taking them away from their loved ones, the second time by going as far as to deny their existence, making mourning impossible. The allegorical dimension catches us by surprise, but there is nothing indecent about it. Quite the opposite. The poetic tale, a romantic odyssey into the limbo of the memory of an old woman looking for her first love now becomes something of a parable. Aren’t love and memory generic concepts? The question of the duty of memory is also prominent on the festival’s programme, tackled head on even. Earlier in the afternoon, there was a performance of Villa + discurso, a poignant play in which three women question each other about the meaning that should be given to the work of memory on the very site of one of the biggest detention and torture centres, through which some 4,500 detainees passed between 1973 and 1978: the Villa Grimaldi. It is now a place of commemoration.
9.45. The final notes of music fall into silence one by one while the stage fades into darkness. The audience rise quickly, conquered, grateful, still flabbergasted and moved by this unidentified stage object. While letting them believe that everything was within view, it disconcerted, it proved, it impressed them and carried them away in a dreamlike maelstrom of freshness and inspiration that they will not forget in a hurry.
Richter scale
The day after the premiere, a leading Chilean dramaturge has written a fantastic review of the piece in a national newspaper. Word of mouth does its job and the next two performances are sold out. In the meantime Jaco and Michèle Anne have embarked on a round of interviews for local TV and radio. Accustomed to the mysteries of negotiation, Ludovica Riccardi, the piece’s production and bookings manager, negotiates with the programmers. At her invitation, several of these professionals approached at the festival centre have been won over by the show and have made their move. They are now keen to have the piece performed in their venues. Kiss & Cry in is demand in Argentina, Ecuador and Uruguay, in New York too. Meanwhile Daniel Cordova, director of Manège.Mons, co-producer of the piece with Charleroi Danses, is negotiating fifteen dates at the Teatro Municipal. Apparently we will be back. The end of the trip is marked by two further events. One is a matter of protocol – a cocktail party at the office of the delegation of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation in honour of the artists. The other is more telluric: two earthquakes, one of a magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter Scale, can be felt in the middle of the second performance. The philosophical Santiago audience barely pay them any attention. Without doubt they will retain a much stronger memory of the movement induced in them by emotion.
Ivo Ghizzardi
Santiago de Chile, 16, 17, 18 January 2012
PARTNERSHIP | FESTIVAL
idill
international dance online short film festival
Review
25 November 2011. La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris. This brand new temple to digital arts was the venue for the awards ceremony of the second idill international dance online short film festival set up by Charleroi Danses.
La Gaîté – one of the festival’s partners from the outset – hosted the event with all due decorum: in front of a large audience of film and dance professionals, Fadila Laanan, the Wallonia-Brussels Federation’s Minister for Culture and the Audiovisual Sector, handed out the top prize. This was followed by four other awards for innovation, world outlook, the jury prize and the audience prize. There was an emotional moment when Stéphanie Aubin, who along with Arnaud Baumann won the Minister’s Prize, paid glowing tribute to Thierry De Mey, proclaiming himself to be a “member of his fan club” – and very fitting given that Thierry was the brains behind the festival. His intention was for it to be international and so idill was conceived especially for the internet with a clear pre-selection on the festival’s website one month before the jury’s vote, online voting for the audience prize, the activation of social networks by partners and live streaming of the ceremony: all ways in which the films can be seen by much wider audiences than in the customary well-informed, but restricted environments. L’Œil de Links, the internet magazine of French channel Canal+, made a great move as well by recently broadcasting a selection of the pick of 2011.
This year idill has been joined by an influential South American partner, Brazil’s dança em foco festival, which will allow the festival greater penetration in this part of the world. Hot on its heels, festivals such as cinedans in Amsterdam and the Festival de Danse et des Arts Multiples in Marseille have already included the 2011 selection on their programme which bodes well for the festival being even more eclectic and international in 2013. This is the dream of everyone at the ceremony which, while conforming to the codes of the genre with black tie, applause and trophies, nevertheless marked a turning point in the history of idill.
Ivo Ghizzardi
with Régis Rémigy
BIENNALE 2011
Lia Rodrigues
Interview
Lia Rodrigues was guest of honour at the last Charleroi Danses Biennale where she presented two of her pieces. We took the opportunity to revisit this highlight with her and talk about her work.
You’ve been on the bill twice at the Biennale. What’s it like staging a brand new show alongside an older piece at the same festival?
It was really important for me to experience because I was able to see how these pieces form a dialogue. For the dancers it was the first time they’d tried switching energy from one piece to another. Given that we’d worked for a whole year on creating Piracema, it seemed be attempting the impossible for them to revive Pororoca straight afterwards.
The two pieces were performed to quite different audiences: an audience of people knowledgeable about and accustomed to contemporary dance codes at the Kaaitheater and then an audience who perhaps don’t know as much but are more curious at Les Écuries. Did you sense any difference in how they were received by these very distinct audiences?
It gave us the opportunity to show our work to quite different audiences. We also perform to audiences of people in Brazil who know about the contemporary language and people new to it. The audience is definitely different each time, but the difference isn’t as great as you might imagine even when the contexts are very distinct. For me, getting a basic idea of the impact of my work on different types of audience is in a sense a challenge.
Piracema and Pororoca share the same grammar of bodies, the same language. Are they two parts of a bigger project?
Yes, they’re part of a triptych and we’ll be creating the third part in 2013. The three pieces are based on the same paradigms: the fact of being together in the same space, the way in which a community is built, how each person finds his own place in it and how the acts of an individual can have consequences within the group.
The dancers’ energy erupts on stage. It feels raw and a long way from any academic idea of choreographed movement. Is that why you want to meet audiences after performances? So that you can give a complementary perspective, so that you can shape what we see?
I like gathering the impressions and feelings experienced by an audience when they watch my pieces. It’s a special and unique moment for exchanging ideas and sharing in a different way than when the roles are strictly divided between the actors on stage on the one hand and the audience in the theatre on the other. There’s an adjustment to the relationship here. It’s interesting to observe how people find their own place from this encounter, what the similarities and differences are, what interactions are taking place. These questions lie at the heart of my work.
Actually in Piracema and Pororoca the individual is revealed before the group and in interaction with it. Piracema’s raw material even comes from each dancer’s dreams. Is it a way of asserting that “another world is possible”, that you can continue to have an influence on its fate despite a certain, apparently unavoidable march of the world?
I think it’s always possible to change things and that we’re responsible for our actions and what we cause to happen. In my country I don’t think the artistic act can be limited to the creation of a work of art. First and simultaneously you have to occupy a space, create a territory and bring about the conditions to survive in it. Adjust, shift, build strategies, repair, restore. Build the terrain so that the work of art can exist. Our decision to work in a favela means we are taking a political position and going against the tendency of excluding this huge section of the population of Rio de Janeiro. At a time when people all over the world are increasingly putting up walls and bars, where territories are fiercely defined, where borders are imposed and rigorously defended, we are suggesting people do the opposite. We’re suggesting there are new possibilities to discover of sharing, dialogue and creation. As the Brazilian educationist Paulo Freire wrote: “... it is no longer just about accessing and accumulating knowledge, but about having a better idea of how to read the world around us to be able to act consciously on it and participate in writing it by transforming it”.
Given the fact that you work in a favela, aren’t you afraid of letting your work become confined in a sociological dimension at the risk of overshadowing its purely artistic foundation?
I don’t think anything pure exists. I see the world as a mixed universe where everything is connected so I’m not afraid of retreating into a single dimension. My work as an artist is to mix with the world in which I live. The reality of the place in which you work has a major influence on how you create and produce. This applies to a Rio favela as much as to any other place in the world. I set out my approach as a choreographer in this territory by creating strategies so that our work can go in search of the people who live in the Maré favela as well as in other parts of the city. I’ve been working in Maré since 2003, but despite that I’m not a choreographer of the favelas! With the REDES association which has been undertaking social and teaching work in this district for over nine years, we’ve found a space to build an arts centre. This centre’s mission is to create, train and show the arts. This is where the company works. And it’s also the space for lots of other activities. We’ve just set up the Escola Livre de Dança da Maré run by Silvia Soter who is also the company’s dramaturge. To some extent this cultural project mirrors what we offer on stage. Even so it’s not about favelas, it’s not about doing social work, that’s not its role.
I don’t think anything pure exists. I see the world as a mixed universe where everything is connected so I’m not afraid of retreating into a single dimension. My work as an artist is to mix with the world in which I live. The reality of the place in which you work has a major influence on how you create and produce. This applies to a Rio favela as much as to any other place in the world. I set out my approach as a choreographer in this territory by creating strategies so that our work can go in search of the people who live in the Maré favela as well as in other parts of the city. I’ve been working in Maré since 2003, but despite that I’m not a choreographer of the favelas! With the REDES association which has been undertaking social and teaching work in this district for over nine years, we’ve found a space to build an arts centre. This centre’s mission is to create, train and show the arts. This is where the company works. And it’s also the space for lots of other activities. We’ve just set up the Escola Livre de Dança da Maré run by Silvia Soter who is also the company’s dramaturge. To some extent this cultural project mirrors what we offer on stage. Even so it’s not about favelas, it’s not about doing social work, that’s not its role.
In Piracema, reference keeps being made to Orfeo Negro in short ritornellos sung by the performers. Is it in direct homage to Camus’ film and the multicultural society that makes up Brazil or is it an ironical allusion to a certain archetypal imagery forged and relayed in the west by Jobim and Bonfà’s music?
In Piracema we chose to work with an important aspect of Brazilian culture: melancholy. In general people talk about Brazil as the country of vibrant energy, noisy joyousness, carnival etc. But the flip side of this image is melancholy. In Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes’ music as well it’s an important component which often comes out in the words, music and melodies. Using these pieces of music that are barely sung by the dancers is like a returning memory that sets the tone for the piece. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil in Desde Que O Samba é Samba also talk about the contradiction between joy and sadness: “The samba is the father of pleasure, the samba is the son of pain”.
In Piracema we chose to work with an important aspect of Brazilian culture: melancholy. In general people talk about Brazil as the country of vibrant energy, noisy joyousness, carnival etc. But the flip side of this image is melancholy. In Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes’ music as well it’s an important component which often comes out in the words, music and melodies. Using these pieces of music that are barely sung by the dancers is like a returning memory that sets the tone for the piece. Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil in Desde Que O Samba é Samba also talk about the contradiction between joy and sadness: “The samba is the father of pleasure, the samba is the son of pain”.
What do you think about the major focus given to contemporary Brazilian dance at the Bienniale during europalia.brasil in the form of artists such as Michel Groisman, Marcello Evelin and yourself? Do you think it means European audiences get a different grasp of Brazilian creation and what makes up Brazil?
I think having it performed during europalia is a wonderful opportunity to show different ways of thinking and producing contemporary dance in Brazil, but Brazil’s a huge country with a huge variety of choreographers and dance companies. europalia.brasil would need to be held several times over to really get to grips with such a complex culture.
I think having it performed during europalia is a wonderful opportunity to show different ways of thinking and producing contemporary dance in Brazil, but Brazil’s a huge country with a huge variety of choreographers and dance companies. europalia.brasil would need to be held several times over to really get to grips with such a complex culture.
Interview by Ivo Ghizzardi
* Bien qu’employé par déformation usuelle au féminin dans la langue française, le mot samba est en effet masculin à l’origine dans la langue brésilienne.
TOURS
Brazil,
Bienal de dança do Ceará
Impressions
Last autumn, Michèle Anne De Mey, Pierre Droulers and Thierry De Mey were all on the bill at the Bienal internacional de Dança do Ceará, representing Charleroi Danses in force. Reminiscences of a tour to Terra brasilis.
Zaventem: it is 17 October 2011 and Charleroi Danses’ technical and artistic team accompanying Pierre Droulers and de l’air et du vent are getting read to leave. Peter Savel has donned his Peruvian hat. During a stopover in Lisbon we’re joined by Michèle Anne De Mey and her group who have just left the CentQuatre in Paris following three performances of Kiss & Cry. Thierry De Mey is not coming on the trip himself, but his films are. They’re being screened at the opening of the Bienal de Dança do Ceará at the Teatro José de Alencar, an Art Nouveau gem. This year the Bienal celebrates its 15th anniversary and we’re going out there to see for ourselves this small team’s remarkable work taking contemporary dance to new audiences and providing training across the entire Ceará region in the north east of the country. David Linharès and Ernesto Gadelha are pioneers who are both passionate about and devoted to dance. Upon arrival at Fortaleza airport we are hit by both the heat and humanity. Meanwhile the music is on at full blast in the taxi. This is how it is from now on, wherever we go and whatever we do. From Pierre Droulers’ welcome in the small coastal town of Paracuru, inland to Sobral for Michèle Anne De Mey, via the festival’s nerve centre in Fortaleza, there is a magical mix of celebration, freedom and excellence and a blend of folklore, tradition and modernity.
A number of students (out of a total of around 200!) from the Escola de Dança in Paracuru have come to perform So Schnell by Dominique Bagouet. It also proves to be an ideal setting in which to perform de l’air et du vent on the small outdoor stage: despite the incessant rain and limited technical facilities, the show’s name has perhaps never been more apt. In Sobral, a party for children is in full swing outside the theatre, with an armada of coloured balloons and clowns soon eclipsed by 12 Easy Waltzes. The shows are free here, the audience young and much less reserved than at home. They rowdily give shows standing ovations in a flash, then return just as quickly to other occupations... There’s no cult of the artist here: they’re part of life, nothing more, nothing less.
En route we come across Christian Duarte, Claudio Bernardo, Jérôme Bel, Cédric Andrieux, Sylvain Prunenec, the Quezar company, Loïc Touzé and others besides. The trip comes to a memorable end in a famous Fortaleza bar where we witnessed a mix of voodoo ceremony and local underground culture.
Fabienne Aucant,
with Ludovica Riccardi,
October 2011
ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE
Thomas Hauert joins Forsythe’s Motion Bank
Review
There are projects which require the creativity of several individuals behind the scenes over extended periods in order to move mountains. The collaboration between ZOO/Thomas Hauert and The Forsythe Company’s “Motion Bank” is one such project. A review and a glimpse of what the ongoing creative process might produce.
Essen, Germany, December 2011. The first meeting between Thomas Hauert and Norah Zuniga-Shaw who runs the Ohio State University Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD), one of several partners in the “Motion Bank” project. They have an informal chat about Thomas’s work. How can improvisation be mobilised in the writing and composition of movement? What principles are employed? They agree on the specific aspects of the work they wish to explore.
Brussels, Belgium, June 2012. Thomas dissects his choreographic practice to reveal, in words and images, the principles behind it but also the meaning. It is an analysis that he had never undertaken so systematically before. He writes: “My methodology is the result of my desire to maximise the creative possibilities of the moving body.”
Columbus, United States, January 2013. Thomas is in Ohio with Sarah Ludi and Mat Voorter, two dancers and friends who have inspired the development of the ZOO dance company since it was set up in 1998. In the studio in the university’s dance department, they present short choreographic sequences that are examples of the principles at the heart of their work. They are surrounded by highly sophisticated technology, from movement sensors all the way to super slow-motion cameras filming 800 images per second. They also have detailed discussions about their work with dance researchers and computer designers involved in the project.
On both sides of the Atlantic, spring 2013. The analysis and creation stage. Furnished with all this material, traces and explanations, the team dissects the movement, trying to understand what makes it so singular. The aim is to develop “digital scores” that allow it to be seen differently. Inventing these scores is a creative act in itself involving the visualisation of statistical data, the isolation of movement of certain parts of the body or, in contrast to this, the relationships between certain parts of the body. The possibilities are endless.
Frankfurt, late November 2013. The results of the project are published on the internet. In parallel, a four-day event is run by the Forsythe Company to present digital scores, discussions, shows, talks... Just be patient for a little while longer!
Denis Laurent
“Motion Bank” is a project by The Forsythe Company. The collaboration with Thomas Hauert is part of “Two project” (artistic directors Maria Palazzi and Norah Zuniga-Shaw) co-produced by the ACCAD and the Department of Dance of Ohio State University together with The Forsythe Company.
TRAINING PROGRAMME
Seven questions for Àngels Margarit
A short interview
Ahead of coming to La Raffinerie to give an exclusive master class and to Les Écuries for two performances of From B to B, a playful duet which she performs alongside Thomas Hauert, we take a look at a unique career and a unique individual.
Borrowing from the title of the piece you’ll be presenting in Charleroi, from the time you started out up to now, has your career gone from A to B?
Not really. I’ve explored lots of places in composition and creation. From strict and pronounced minimalism when I started out, I’ve evolved in several directions at the same time. For example I had a period of more fluid exploration that I called my “plant period” when I tried to find other ways of moving which were inspired by plants. Another time, architecture was also a source of inspiration on stage: the trace in the urban space, the body in the city, the city as a body... I then embarked on a work process centred on community dynamics. It’s hard to sum up 28 years of work in a few words, but I’d say that I’ve always been very curious about movement in all its variety, the infinite exploration allowed by the body, the endlessly renewed way of composing what it has to offer.
What place does improvisation have in your work?
Although I’ve used improvisation as a dancer and as a choreographer, my composition work remains very written. It’s only in recent years that I’ve started using improvisation a bit with my dancers and composing with more flexible scores. Dramaturgy, actions, situations and instructions are still in place, but the movement score can now be a little more open… but not that much (laughter)!
How did your collaboration with Thomas Hauert come about?
I knew his work from seeing videos of it and then I invited him to the festival I was organising near Barcelona. After that he often came to Mudances to run laboratories. We started to get to know each other a bit better. I was interested in his way of working with the space and the body, and the idea of collaborating with him started to take shape. It was the right time for him too: he wanted to experience working in a small formation. So that’s how the duet From B to B came about. We didn’t know exactly where we were going with it. It’s also what makes the essence of the piece – a work on communication, the discovery of the other person, the progression.
Did the difference in approach become even more pronounced?
In all the experiences of collaboration I’ve had, namely three duets, what’s interested me has been the meeting point, the point of convergence. Of course the differences are easier to identify. And even when you feel there are similarities, the way each person gets there is always very different. My approach is more to find the place where it becomes comfortable for the other person.
How did you choose the music? It’s pretty varied to say the least, featuring music by Lucio Dalla, Jordi Savall and Barbara Streisand.
When we had this idea of advancing towards the other person, we did it in different ways, including in terms of the music we used. Thomas suggested choosing pieces we like, but on a personal and biographical level, not a professional one. We then just kept what made sense in the piece. What was left gave us our options. We made our way forward using all this material, the music, the choreographic biography, the things we could exchange.
We know that there’s an important teaching element to your work now. How important is transmission to you?
It’s vital. In 2010, we did a retrospective of 25 years of Mudances. It was very interesting, but not solely from the point of view of transmission in the strict sense of the word in workshops. We diversified the process, for example by suggesting students execute short forms by providing them with the composition tools used during the creation of particular pieces. When you offer that, it gives another viewpoint in relation to these same tools you’ve discovered. This generosity of giving is then rewarded in return: you get a lot back as a choreographer. It’s a way of continuing to learn, feeling the others, not remaining alone. This makes transmission a lot more interesting. It allows us to continue to grow, to enhance our knowledge as choreographers but as human beings as well.
What do you think of the next generations?
In dance, like everywhere, it’s now possible grasp lots of things and learn very quickly. I think it’s accelerated in the last few years. Schools have done some good training and passed on information to the dancers and that’s great. There are wonderful possibilities for the upcoming generations; they have a lot available to them for creative purposes. The only thing is that there’s now so much information that choosing has become harder. And that’s what creating is. Isn’t the universe the result of choice?
Interview by Ivo Ghizzardi
ASSOCIATE ARTISTS
Thierry De Mey on the web, catalogued and boxed up
There’s plenty going on at the moment for Thierry De Mey. He’s at the heart of a number of projects: a retrospective catalogue, a digital channel, a book and a DVD box set – a whole range of media offering a whole range of opportunities to immerse ourselves once more in the universe of this prolific artist.
In addition to an ambitious new work planned for 2014 in collaboration with Ircam and the Ensemble Intercontemporain in which all the artistic forms he has been intimate with for almost three decades – music, dance, capturing movement and image – converge in an exhilarating syncretism, a book about him has also been brought out by the Centre des Arts Enghien-les-Bains. Published straight after Traces de Mouvements, a monographic exhibition dedicated to his work which was held at the arts centre between September and December last year, this retrospective catalogue raisonné of his work is based on personal archives, testimonies and other critical texts. An absolute must for anyone interested in this man who is still a leading figure among those who helped bring Belgian contemporary dance to international attention, thanks to his films’ distinguished aesthetics, his radical music compositions and his knowledgeable advice. Thierry De Mey’s film work can currently be viewed almost in its entirety on the channel opened by Charleroi Danses on the international online dance video library numeridanse.tv A comprehensive publication about Light Music, a musical piece for a “solo conductor” with projections and an interactive device which marked a major turning point in his artistic career, is currently being developed for publication next season by l’oeil d’or in partnership with Charleroi Danses and edited by Clarisse Bardiot, a research associate at the CNRS and a senior lecturer. Finally there are rumours that a complete works in the form of a box set of dance films by the creator of From Inside might finally see the light of day under the aegis of Cinéart. There’s no missing Thierry de Mey these days!
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The Traces de Mouvements catalogue is available on request from contact@charleroi-danses.be
€ 20
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The Charleroi Danses channel on numeridanse