Studio Regard du Cygne at a glance: contemporary dance and performance "just a little underground" [by Tracy Danison]

Jessica Bonamy and her Cie Safra explore choreography as silent language. A diversity of intention in dance-performance is the most striking characteristic of Regard du Cygne’s programming.  Photo©2021 Rachel Krief

I think the last dance performanceI saw – or, at least, the one that touched me most, personally – before shuffling off through a two-year health emergency and into a 2022 at the brink of a European war for lost empire was Amy Swanson’s Ma Robe (“My Gown”) at the studio Regard du Cygne, in Belleville, in Paris’ 20^th arrondissement.

As I recall, the show was fun and I felt good afterwards. There was in it the immediate enthusiasm of the kids next to me for that great heavy satin gown twirling that gave new depth of sincerity to their squeaky j’adores, a remembrance of Karine’s love for “a skirt that twirls”, a thought that for Isadora Duncan dance was a link to a truer (or: ancient-er) religion, a thought that both Buddhist “forest” monks and Sufi devotees twirl themselves into altered consciousness.

I thought then that dance is probably about that, altering consciousness, like one can with peyote or something 60s like that. Since then, I’ve come to think that Dance, capital “D”, is about entering the state of Imagination, capital “I”. The mark of that is feeling good after a performance.

Regard du Cygne –  now with nearly 40 years of intentions and choreographers and dance-performances layered into it, reopened post-pandemic this past Fall – putting together and producing its annual Signes d’Automne program.

At the little studio, a piece may leave me hot or cold or puzzled, but it always feels right: there’s a will to open to Dance, however it forms itself in the minds of its latest movers and shapers and, also, give young ideas a shot. Plus, dance lessons, kid-shows, family days, short films and conferences. I've put in links to the artists in the latest program, Signes de Printemps, posted below, which will give an idea of the diversity of performance intention involved.

Christina Towle, Regard du Cygne’s artistic director, says of the autumn re-opening that even when things were “rock and roll” – stressful – it was just “beautiful”. She cites the spontaneous enjoyment of the family day, especially strong performances, such as choreographer-dancer Rebecca Journo’s one-woman L’Epouse (“The Bride”) or un-reproduceably fine creative moments such as composer-pianist-choreographer Aurélien Richard’s Impromptus.

The stress, Towle says, came from Covid-related filling and backfilling of a program that the studio strives to keep “a little underground”: emerging choreographers, and “people who aren’t yet on everybody’s playlist”. Regard du Cygne, along with the association Mains d’Oeuvres in the near-suburb of Saint Ouen, she says, remains one of the few dance-performance studios that will run unknowns.

Contemporary dance production tends to be open to evolution anyway, Towle says, and a lot of the studio’s programming is works-in-progress. What with the shutdowns, lockdowns, cancellations and plain old time between creation and production, “three or four projects had transformed into something else entirely.”

 

“Prouesse de l echec” (Wonders of failure). Performances at Regard du Cygne may be new creations or works in progress... Photo©2021 Benoit Chapon

What keeps drawing people to the studio after 40 years? What’s special to the Regard du Cygne? I ask her. She tells me that it is the studio’s traditional charm in the tradition of Belleville.  

That rings true. It also occurs to me that the traditional charm protects Regard du Cygne’s quite radically contemporary universalist project.

Just at the corner of the rues Belleville and Pixérécourt, the studio, is plunk in the middle of Belleville, now a densely-populated neighborhood enjoying a deep-rooted mix of contrasting cultures and traditions living very different types of lives cheek-to-buttock in architecturally undistinguished residences. The Bellevillois crowd their streets and parks. They seem mostly to keep within that bubble of coolly polite modesty that characterizes so many respectable middling-broke citizens in this country. Businesses tend to small and family-run. With sérieux, and the living-day long, people work with a particular attention to a certain good humor and personal dignity. Candide would be comfortable and well-liked here.

When I contemplate it in the round, at the heart of Belleville is a respect for figuring it out how to get a life done – la débrouillardise.

Regard du Cygne shares this basic form of respect – such basic respect too often lacks in the marketing-culture of our Oomph-capitalist era. Its sérieux when it comes to getting dance creation out before its public along with the good humor and dignity of its welcome, explain the longevity of its endeavor.  

If you’re looking for a place where you can see what’s emerging in dance and performance as well as enjoy a bit of Paris that is, as Mia Doi Todd puts it, far from the Eiffel Tower … where you can be your skin and bones, the Regard du Cygne is for you.

Program Signes de Printemps 2022, Regard du Cygne

A "Pile ou Frasq" open-stage performance. Photo©Bernard Bousquet

Fri 4 March 16:00 Public rehearsal, Glissement, Johan Bichot

Sat 5 March 20:00 Shared stage: r e s t e r [boomerang versio], Marie Desoubeaux, cie Présomptions de Présences, dance performance with music; and Spin Tuner & Field Scores Maya M. Carroll & Roy Carroll, cie Présomptions de Présences, dance performance with music

Tues 8 March 20:00 Amaan Julie Métairie, cie Trans’Art, an electro-tale, performance-dance-music (storytelling)

Weds 9 March 20:00 Amaan Julie Métairie, cie Trans’Art, an electro-tale, performance-dance-music (storytelling)

Thurs 10 March 10:00 & 14:00  Dance and performance tales for kids

Fri 11 March 16:00 & 20:00  Dance and performance WIP

Mon 14 March 19:00 In association with Le Générateur performance program Pile ou Frasq: Open stage: amateur performance in 10 minutes or less

Tues 15 March 20:00 With performance program Pile ou Frasq: Multidisciplinary performances at Le Générateur performance space (Gentilly)

Thurs 17 March  20:00  Shared stage: Inizio, dance creation, Francesca Ziviani / Inging, happening-performance creation, Jeanine Durning  & Simon Tanguy

Fri 18 March 20:00 20:00  Shared stage: Inizio, dance creation, Francesca Ziviani / Inging, happening-performance creation, Jeanine Durning  & Simon Tanguy

Thurs 24 March 20:00  BROUHAHA 2,  Lola Maury: dance, performance, music and ritual

Fri 25 March 20:00  BROUHAHA 2,  Lola Maury: dance, performance, music and ritual

Tues 29 March 20:00  Une singulière histoire de la danse, danced lecture by Fabrice Ramalingom

Weds 30 March 16:00  00  Une singulière histoire de la danse, danced lecture by Fabrice Ramalingom

Sat 02 April Family Day by Sylvie Le Quéré: Dance performance fun for kids

                     10:00 > 11:30  Zool (Performance & workshop)

                     15:00 > 16:30  Zool (Performance & workshop)

Comments

[Amy Swanson Salmon]

THANKS SO VERY MUCH Tracy! I'm moved that "La Robe", danced by Zoë Salmon touched you !! It's an amazing and ever challenging piece to do and fascinating to watch unfold...
We are very grateful always to have your personal Regard and poetic words about how you feel and what the pieces do to you . See you very soon!
Love,
Amy xo

[sarah]

Highly informative blog for all its viewers! it was fun reading and getting to know more about contemporary dance style!

[saakshi]

Just great!

[sarah]

There are poems you need to read more than once. "Four Quartets" qualifies.

[contemporary dance]

thank you for posting this wonderful post on contemporary dance its quite informative.