Workshop with Robyn Orlin
Robyn Orlin is an independent artist who has worked in South Africa for twenty years. As an activist, she took part in the struggle against apartheid and continues to denounce all forms of discrimination, racial tensions and those affecting the different generations. Producer and stage designer, she created a mixed company (black and white, men and women of all ages), a mix that echoes the different artistic disciplines that form an integral part of her work. With irony and provocation, in her shows she deals with the difficulty the population of South Africa faces in formulating a distinct way of “being together”.     

Updating: December 2010 

Robyn Orlin was born in 1955 in Johannesburg and obtained bursaries to study in London (London Contemporary Dance School) and then in Chicago (School of Art Institute).

Since her first performance in Johannesburg in 1980, she has attempted to redefine choreography and the art of theatre in her country and has become one of the most committed anti-apartheid choreographers. She starts from the principle that “dance is political”, and in her pieces she examines the social and cultural situation in South Africa: its influences, its history, its rifts and its disintegration. The choreography then creates “an iconoclastic dance which puts its foot in it”, a dance-chronicle of today's South African society, skilfully handling irony and derision; a dance that shamelessly stirs up references and identities, blending traditional popular culture with the radical avant-garde, a dance that is capable of breaking down the artist-audience barrier by putting the audience at the centre of the event.

Robyn Orlin came to France for the first time in April 2000 at the invitation of La Filature Scène Nationale, Mulhouse, with “Daddy, I've seen this piece six times before...”

She achieved immediate recognition: Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Montpellier Dance Festival, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, followed by tours all over the world.

In 2004, Robyn Orlin took part in the inauguration of the Centre National de la Danse, Pantin and composed a solo for Sophiatou Kossoko as part of “Vif du Sujet”.

In 2005 she created “When I take off my skin and touch the sky with my nose, only then I can see little voices amuse themselves...”, a piece with 6 singers from the South African Opera, then, during the summer, “Hey dude... i have talent... i'm just waiting for god...,” a solo for the dancer-choreographer Vera Mantero.
  From September 2005 Robyn Orlin was in residency for two years at the Centre National de la Danse, Pantin. In April 2007 her “L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato” was premièred at the Paris National Opera.

Source : 

Digital resource - Médiathèque du Centre national de la danse
http://mediatheque.cnd.fr/spip.php?page=mediatheque-numerique-ressource&id=PHO00003887

 More information :  robynorlin.com

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).