Too cold for a swim, too warm for a cozy read? Do a little dance
Twenty contemporary and modern dance and performance offers in Paris, late Autumn 2019.
Paris Performance Calendar is a work-in-progress “dance syllabus”, a “to-see agenda” of dance performance complemented by essays and articles about esthetics, creation and creativity along with interviews of creators and performers in The Best American Poetry and other publications.
YVONA – Performance Theater • Creation 2019 • Elizabeth Czerzuk • 90 minutes • T.E.C., Théâtre Elizabeth Czerczuk, Paris, until 20 December 2019 • Α Choreographed performance theater featuring a cast of 22 dancers, actors and singers, Czerzuk’s most recent creation takes inspiration from Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy by Witan Gombrowicz, the story of a unattractive and uninteresting princess and a prince who revolts against his impulse to like only attractive and interesting women. Yvonne, hero of the piece, says Czerczuk, puts traditional relationship criteria to a hard test, because she lives an authentic life Ω Concept, set and choreography: Elizabeth Czerczuk / Set design scene: Anna Chadaj and Grzegorz Jasniak / Costumes : Joanna Jasko-Sroka / Music: Krzysztof Penderecki, Wojciech Kilar, Henryk Górecki / Lighting design : Grzegorz Jasniak / Lighting: Lucas Crouxinoux / Sound: Lubin Leroy Gourhan
MOVING IN CONCERT – Performance – dance • 2019 • Mette Ingvartsen • Centre Pompidou, Paris, 6-9 November, 2019 • Festival d’Automne 2019 Α Ingvartsen is especially recognized for her performances Red Pieces, 7 pleasures and 21 Pornographies, treating the human body and sexuality. With this piece she returns to her long-term focus on a world where all is animate and in intimate collaboration. It seems to me to be interesting to put her performance in parallel to Jann Gallois’ Samsara – the core concern, how do we humans connect and where is very similar. Ω Concept and choreography: Mette Ingvartsen with Christine De Smedt / Performers: Bruno Freire, Elias Girod, Gemma Higginbotham, Dolores Hulan, Jacob Ingram-Dood, Anni Koskinen, Calixto Neto, Norbert Pape, Manon Santkin / Sound: Peter Lenaerts / Lighting: Minna Tiikkainen / Costuming: Jennifer Defays / Set design: Mette Ingvartsen and Minna Tiikkainen / Dramaturgy: Bojana Cvejic / Technical director: Hans Meijer / Production assistant : Manon Haase and Joey Ng / Management of set fascias (friezes): Anja Röttgerkamp / Administration : Kerstin Schroth / Production : Great Investment vzw
QUEEN BLOOD – Dance • 2019 • Ousmane Sy (a.k.a., Babson) • 60 minutes • Espace 1789, Saint-Ouen, 7-8 November 2019 • L’Embarcadère, Aubervilliers • Festival Kalypso 2019 • Α A force for dance on five continents, Ousmane Sy’s Queen Blood (La Villette, Season 2018-19) discloses the “conductor” within his “choreographer”. The all-women cast of Sy’s piece is made up of distinct individuals (so much so that I, for one, “forgot” their status as female and “remembered” their status as individuals during the performance). Sy’s choreography and directorial approach conduct rather than direct or manage the performers of his cast, solo and together. That is to say that under Sy’s “baton” each performer is a separate instrument of distinct sound and role, uncovering dance movement as body music. Ω Choreography: Ousmane Sy / Performers: Odile Lacides, Nadia Gabrieli Kalati, Nadiah Idriss, Valentina Dragotta, Cyntia Lacordelle, Stéphanie Paruta, Anaïs Imbert / Lighting: Xavier Lescat / Production: Garde Robe
ET MAINTENANT /BLOW – Dance • Creation 2019 • Léa Latour & cie Dirty Lab / Karim Khouader, cie KH • 35 & 25 minutes • La Villette, Paris, 30 November & 1 December, 2019 • Festival Kalypso 2019 • Α Léa Latour’s Et Maintenant and Karim Khouader’s Blow are first créations – one of the aims of the Kalypso festival is to bring forward developing new talent. Latour founded her company to look at ways of representing women shorn of stereotype. Et Maintenant is a fruit of this work, looking at ways of sculpting female energy and body into a new form of woman. Karim Khouader tackles “new masculine shape” with work on masculine emotional expression, especially within stereotypes of masculine representation Ω Et maintenant Choreography: Léa Latour / Performers: Maryne Esteban, Megan Deprez, Chloé Salanon, Viola Chiarini // Blow Choreographer: Karim Khouader / Performers: Karim Khouader, Jerson Diasonama, Petros Nikolidis, William Domiquin, Tarek Ait Meddour / Lighting: Benoît Cherouvrier
THE FALLING STARDUST – Dance • Creation 2019 • Amala Dianor • 60 minutes • Espace 1789, Saint-Ouen, 28-29 November 2019 • Festival Kalypso • Α Amala Dianor has written a spectacular piece that does more than mix hip hop and contemporary dance. Stardust is a sophisticated visual treat in the best music video tradition. After coming up through a wide variety of urban and contemporary dance companies over the last seven years, Dianor has been steadily building a solid reputation for choreographic development in contemporary dance. He is currently an associate at Pole Sud, at the CDCN Strasbourg Ω Choreography: Amala Dianor / Performers: Thomas Demay, Lucie Dubois, Baptiste Lenoir, Charlotte Louvel, Manuel Molino, Keyla Ramos, Yukie Spruijt, Jeanne Stuart, Elena Thomas / Set: Clément Debras / Lighting: Xavier Lazarini / Music: Awir Léon / Director: Nicolas Tallec
SPECTACLES SAUVAGES – short choreographies – Dance performance • Creations 2019 • Bahar Temiz, Yohan Vallée, Jeanne Alechinsky, Anna Ten, Léa Grappe • Regard du Cygne, Paris, 6 - 7 November 2019 • Signes d’Automne 2019 • Α Spectacles Sauvages is an up-close, interactive and playful test platform for experimental work or extracts from WIPs. Creators may be known or new to the scene. Spectators include performance-dance fans, professionals and other creators. Ω 6 November: the platform features Ice by Bahar Temiz, Mon vrai métier, c’est la nuit by Yohan Vallée & Jeanne Alechinsky, Je suis venu voir les gens danser autour de moi by Anna Ten and L’être là by Léa Grappe Ω 7 November: Mimeosaurus by Theo Pendle, Démayé by Florence Boyer & Abdou N’gom, Comme ça by Association VRAC and Corps en transe by Daouda Nganga.
SAMSARA – Dance • Creation 2019 • Jann Gallois, cie Burnout • 60 minutes • Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 6 - 17 November 2019 • Season 2019-20 Théâtre National de la Danse • Α ‘Though she began doing hip-hop, Jann Gallois, now associate artist at Chaillot, has been writing broadly contemporary dance-performance for years now. All the work I’ve seen keeps up the dynamic of physical closeness and strenuousness that marks hip hop and building it up around a free expressionist core. Samsara, a reference to the Buddhist belief in a cyclical flow of birth and rebirth that is supposed to grind humans down to clear soul, is likely to be, at least, in this same visual vein. Gallois, says the performance note, has designed a set that underlines the physical closeness of her players. “Ultimately,” it continues, “the goal is that everyone can … reconnect with their spiritual side... Ω Choreography: Jann Gallois / Performers: Inkeun Baïk, Carla Diego, Shirwann Jeammes, Jean-Charles Jousni, Marie-Hanna Klemm, Jérémy Kouyoumdjian, Laureline Richard / Set design: Jann Gallois with Delphine Sainte-Marie / Lighting: Cyril Mulon / Music: Charles Amblard / Costumes: Marie-Cécile Viault / Outside advice: Frédéric Le Van / Production Chaillot, Théâtre National de la Danse & cie Burnout
FATCH – Dance performance • Creation 2019 • Lotus Eddé-Khouri, Christophe Macé • 40 minutes • Regard du Cygne, Paris, 14 November 2019 • Signes d’Automne 2019 • Α Lotus Eddé-Khouri, an associate artist at Regard du Cygne, in collaboration with Christophe Macé, continues a series of choreographic miniatures that use a remixed hit song and a dedicated Christophe Macé dance platform. Macé is a sculptor as well as a performance artist. The evening opens with organ version of Sometimes I feel like a motherless child by Fats Waller Ω Concept & choreography: Lotus Eddé-Khouri, Jean-Luc Guionnet and Christophe Macé / Performers: Lotus Eddé-Khouri, Christophe Macé / Musical arrangement: Jean-Luc Guionnet / Music: Jean Dousteyssier / Set: Christophe Macé / Lighting: Baptiste Joxe & cie Structure Couple
FORME SIMPLE: Elucidations and Goldberg Variations – Dance - Performance • 2017 • Loïc Touzé • Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris, 18-23 November • Festival d’Automne 2019 Α This is a program of autobiographical dance reflection shared with Daniel Linehan. As Forme Simple, Loïc Touzé’s Elucidations and Goldberg Variations in figures, gestures images and words tell and show the story of Touzé’s coming into his own, from classic to contemporary dance and then to his own performance approach and style Ω Concept and Choreography: Loïc Touzé / Performers: Madeleine Fournier, David Marques, Blandine Rannou, Teresa Silva / Music: Goldberg Variations, J.S. Bach / Clavichord: Blandine Rannou / Lighting and technical direction: Pierre Bouglé / Costumes: Valentine Solé / Set design: Miranda Kaplan
BODY OF WORK – Dance - Performance • 2019 • Daniel Linehan • Théâtre de la Bastille, Paris, 18-23 November 2019 • Festival d’Automne 2019 Α This is a program of autobiographical dance reflection shared with Loïc Touzé. Daniel Linehan has played Théâtre de la Bastille more than once over the years: Montage for Three, Not About Everything, Zombie Aporia et Gaze is a Gap is a Ghost. With Body of Work, a solo pièce he covers memories of childhood, 15 years of career and beliefs about the nature and staying power of dance performance Ω Concept and Choreography: Daniel Linehan
BACH SONATE E DANZATE – Dance performance, music • 2019 • Marco Chenevier with Serena Costenaro • 45 minutes • Regard de Cygne, Paris, 14 November 2019 • Signes d’Automne 2019 • Α As part of his public rehearsal, duo-ing with cellist Serena Costenaro, Marco Chenevier, an associate at the Regard du Cygne, offers six danced Bach preludes. The Regard du Cygne’s “Répétition Publique” (Public Rehearsal) format is meant to enable Chenevier to open up this experiment in “empathy theater” and dual music-dance performance to audience scrutiny Ω Concept and choreography: Marco Chenevier / Performers: Marco Chenevier, Serena Costenaro / Music: Serena Costenaro, cello / Lighting: Andréa Sangiorgi
LE VRAI LIEU – Dance performance, dance • Creation 2019 • Eva Assayas & Cie Hekla • 30 minutes / SOIE • Marie Simon & Cie Les Sils • Creation 2019 • 30 minutes • Regard de Cygne, Paris, 21 November 2019 • Signes d’Automne 2019 • Α Eva Assayas uses this solo piece to express movement and gesture as the household of one’s being. Vrai lieu, (true place), follows a previous piece done with Ariane Derain, and, as is this one, inspired by Albert Camus, Obscur à soi même (obscur to oneself) Α Soie (silk), Marie Simon’s first creation, opens with a few notes from Ahmed Amine’s oud, a stringed instrument resembling a lute or guitar, traditional in the Middle East. Amine’s original composition light a chiaroscuro of a dance performed nude – weaving silk with her movement Ω Vrai lieu Choreography : Eva Assayas / Performers : Eva Assayas / Set: Guillaume Bouisset / Music composition : Antoine Assayas Ω Soie Choreographer: Marie Simon / Performers : Marie Simon / Music composition : Ahmed Amine / Musicians : Ahmed Amine and Ben Feguira / Lighting: Emmanuelle Stauble / Outside advice : Alain Simon
MESSE POUR LE TEMPS PRESENT – MAURICE BÉJART - Dance - Performance • 1967/2019 • 2016 • Hervé Robbe, cie Travelling & Co • Philharmonie de Paris, Salle des concerts – Cité de la musique, 20 November 2019 • DanseAujourdhui • Α A “remix”of Maurice Bejart’s classic non dance by a choreographer known for a taste for rigorously constructed sets and repetitive phasing. The original Messe Pour le Temps Présent was the first dance piece performed in the Cour d’Honneur du Palais des Papes in 1967 at Festival d’Avignon. Pierre Henry put together a “Grand Remix”, seen in the Youtube video attached, for which Robbe, a former student of Béjart and an alumnus of Ecole Mudra, “remixed” the choreography for a première at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2016.
SACRE DU PRINTEMPS – Dance • 2018 • Xavier Le Roy • Centre Pompidou, Paris, 21-23 November 2019 • Festival d’Automne 2019 • Α No dance festival is complete without a Sacre du Printemps. Xavier Le Roy created this triplet of parallel choreographies for three-persons in one dance for last year’s Biennale di Venezia. Sacred indeed, a triple Trinity Ω Concept: Xavier Le Roy / Performers: Salka Ardal Rosengren, Alexandre Achour, Scarlet Yu / Music: Igor Stravinsky, Sacre du Printemps, Berliner Philharmoniker, conductor Sir Simon Rattle / Sound system: Peter Boehm / Lighting: Maurice Fouilhé / Management & organization: Vincent Cavaroc, Fanny Herserant / Production: Le Kwatt (France) and illusion & macadam (France) in coproduction with La Biennale di Venezia
SOULEVEMENT – Performance - Dance • 20 • Tatiana Julien, cie C’interscribo • Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 22-27 November 2019 • Season 2019-20 Théâtre National de la Danse • Α Tatiana Julien dances solo the energies and issues beguiling the world since May 1968, they say, making a grand synthesis by weaving together dance and intellectual modes. Experimental and hybrid on every level, Tatiana Julien’s schtick is in situ immersive-dance-performance-theater, if that’s a possible combination. Julien has performed for cie 7273, and choreographers Nathalie Pernette, Thomas Lebrun, Sylvain Prunenec, Olivia Grandville and Boris Charmatz. She founder her troupe cie C’interscribo in 2011 Ω Choreography: Tatiana Julien / Performers: Tatiana Julien / Music and sound: Gaspard Guilbert / Lighting: Kevin Briard / Costuming: Tatiana Julien, Catherine Garnier / Documentation: Catherine Jivora / Collaborators: Clémence Galliard, Sylvain Riejou / Production: C’interscribo co-production Espace des arts, Scène nationale Chalon-sur-Saône.
ALLEGRIA – Dance • 20 • Kader Attou, cie Accrorap with CCN de La Rochelle • Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 23 November – 5 December 2019 • Season 2019-20 Théâtre National de la Danse • Α Kader Attou builds a joyful, optimistic hip hop Fantasia from everyday movement with snippets and bits of attitude and expression from graphic novels, singspiel and movies. With a hip-hops sensitivity to entertainment value, the result is generously doused in light and raw energy Ω Artistic direction, dramaturgy and choreography: Kader Attou with Mehdi Ouachek / Performers: Gaetan Alin, Khalil Chabouni, Jackson Ntcham, Mehdi Ouachek, Artem Orlov, Sulian Rios, Hugo de Vathaire, Maxime Vicente / Set design: Camille Duchemin with Kader Attou / Music: Régis Baillet – Diaphane / Lighting: Fabrice Crouzet / Production: CCN de la Rochelle - cie Accrorap
CUNNINGHAM x 100 - MERCE CUNNINGHAM – Dance • 2019 • Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNMSDP) • 60 minutes • La Villette – Grande Halle, Paris, 30 November 2019 • Festival d’Automne 2019 • Α In a wild splurge of Imitatio Cunninghamus, CNMSDP will honor the great choreographer’s 1964 dance-happening by taking over the Grande Halle of La Villette. All 100 of CNMSDP’s students of dance and percussion will take part in a marathon presentation not only of the repertory of Cunningham but also of outside events as will create, as Cunningham put it “more an experience of dance than an evening of dance” Ω Choregraphy: Merce Cunningham / Performers: The 100 dance and percussion students of the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris / Music: John Cage / Production: Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris with La Villette – Grande Halle (Paris)
ANTHOLOGIE DE CAUCHEMARS – Performance - Dance • 2018 • Marcia Barcellos, Karl Biscuit, cie Système Castafiore • Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 5 – 10 December 2019 • Season 2019-20 Théâtre National de la Danse• Α Marcia Barcellos and Karl Biscuit will be, as usual, at the top of their game, which began in 1989. Following on the Théorie des Prodiges, this newest creation interprets dreaming, seeking out “the images at the root of our imagining power”. Keeping in mind that nightmares (cauchemars) are, especially, effective dreams and the dreams we tend to remember, Anthologie is, more than anything else a gorgeous multimedia happening that uses a mastery of magic, hypnotism and illusion, along with techniques from film and theater, music, light and video to get the spectator into a waking dream. Ω Choreography: Marcia Barcellos / Performers: Tuomas Lahti, Tom Lévy-Chaudet, Lucille Mansas, Daphné Mauger, Sara Pasquier / Music and video direction: Karl Biscuit / Lighting: Julien Guérut / Costumes: Christian Burle with Magali Leportier / Graphics: Vincent de Chavanes / Production: Système Castafiore Co-production Chaillot Théâtre National de la Danse
LA PASTORALE (BEETHOVEN HOMMAGE) – Dance • Creation 2019 • Thierry Malandain, Ballet Biarritz • Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 13-19 December 2019 • Season 2019-20 Théâtre National de la Danse • Α Malandain Ballet Biarritz’s La Pastorale is the company’s third shot at Beethoven’s work, following on Les Créatures (of Prometheus) and Silhouette, a solo piece. Malandain, a choreographer with a foot firmly in classical modern dance and a hand grasping the pulse of contemporary expressionism is a fan of the enlightenment values that underpin the great composer’s compositions Ω Choreography: Thierry Malandain Music: Ludwig van Beethoven / Performers: 22 TBA / Set and costumes : Jorge Gallardo / Lighting François Menou / Production: Maladain Ballet Biarritz, Chaillot Théâtre National de la Danse
SUMMERSPACE, EXCHANGE, SCENARIO - MERCE CUNNINGHAM – Dance • Summerspace 1958, American Dance Festival, Connecticut College, New London, Conneticut / Exchange 1978, City Center Theater, New York / Scenario 1997, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York/ • Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon • 140 minutes • Centquatre Paris, 18-21 December 2019 • Festival d’Automne 2019 • Α Summerspace, Exchange and Scenario only recently entered into the Ballet de Lyon’s repertory, the note says, representing the intersection of musical, imagistic and choreographic elements that created Cunningham’s purified expressionism or abstraction. The company’s choice offers a transverse cut of the choreographer’s development: Summerspace from 1958, representing the master’s early lyrical abstraction; Exchange, 1978, with its formalized geometries and complex gesture; Scenario, 1997, with 13 “modules” created with the computer program Danceforms. Ω Summerspace Choreography: Merce Cunningham / Music: Morton Feldman / Renewal: Banu Ogan / Performers: six performers of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon TBA / Piano: Agnès Melchior, Futaba Oki / Lighting: Aaron Copp / Technical direction: Davison Scandrett / Exchange Choreography: Merce Cunningham / Music: David Tudor / Renewal: Patricia Lent, Andrea Weber / Performers: 15 performers of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon TBA / Sound: Jean-Pierre Barbier, Phil Edelstein / Decor, costumes and lighting based on Jasper Johns originals / Technical direction: Davison Scandrett / Scenario Choreography: Merce Cunningham / Music: Takehisa Kosugi / Renewal: Andrea Weber, Jamie Scott, Banu Ogan / Performers: 15 performers of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon TBA / Set design, lighting and costuming: Rei Kawakubo / Technical director: Davison Scandrett
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