Choreography by James Carlès
A choreographic extract remodelled by the company Périphéri’k (Elven), artistic coordinator Kaylie Le Trionnaire, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2014) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
Based in Morbihan, the association Périphéri’K brings together nine female dancers, aged between thirteen and twenty-one today, as an extension of the teaching they receive in their dance school, directed by Kaylie Le Trionnaire (classical, contemporary, African dance and jazz dance). With between five and ten years’ experience, their aesthetic goal is to dedicate themselves to projects rooted in the present moment, nurtured by a thorough understanding of the current overlaps between African, hip-hop and jazz dances. Their practice involves a questioning of origins, which is where the input provided by James Carlès is of particular value, giving solid foundations to their weekly work sessions.

The project
While numbers remain constant, there are no male participants in the thirteen-minute extract chosen from Beast of Nonation. Passionate about training, and participating for the second time in the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” national meeting, James Carlès leads the project personally. He considers this work, dealing with African roots, as conducive to a fundamental questioning for amateurs often inclined to reproduce energy models drawn from Broadway imagery. He transmits techniques of gaze, circulation of energy flows, intentional charging with interpretative meaning, combined with techniques of musical attentiveness and anchoring, leading to a studied rhythmic elaboration. 

The choreographer
A Franco-Cameroonian, James Carlès was trained in the Anglo-Saxon modern style. He introduces to his unique jazz dance a concern with afro-descendant filiations, providing an historical reading of black dances, whose perspectives vary greatly according to whether they are considered in an American or European context, for example. James Carlès created his first work in 1989, opened a training venue in Toulouse ten years later, before initiating ten years after that the festival Danses et Continents noirs. Created in 2001 to a music by the Nigerian artist Fela Kuti, Beast of Nonation (“a beast that has no land”) is emblematic of the quest for a jazz beat through the prism of African roots.

James Carles is a choreographer, researcher and lecturer. He received initial training in dance and music of Africa and its Diaspora and then trained with the great names of modern dance in New York and London mainly. Since 1992, he hired an artistic and analytical approach that explores the “places junctions” between the dances, rhythms and philosophies of Africa and its Diaspora with technical and western thoughts frames. To date, his company’s directory contains more than fifty pieces of his own creation and authors like Katherine Dunham, Pearl Primus, Talley Beatty, Asadata Dafora, Geraldine Armstrong, Rick Odums, Wayne Barbaste, Carolyn Carlson, Robyn Orlin, etc.

Dancer soloist and outstanding performer, James Carles was performer and artistic collaborator for not only numerous “all music” ranging from Baroque to contemporary music, through jazz; but also choreographers such as Carolyn Carlson, Robyn Orlin, Rui Horta, Myriam Naisy, etc.

Artist associated with Astrada- Jazz In Marciac 2012-2014, research associate in the laboratory of the University LLA Créatis Jean Jaures Toulouse, James Carles is particularly invests in heritage projects for diversity and diffusion of choreographic culture. He is also founder and artistic director of the festival “Dances and Black Continents”.

From live stage images to life in images, the  director and video artist Karim Zeriahen seems to have found the  shortest way. Since the beginning of the 90s, when he worked in close  relationship with choreographer Philippe Decouflé, he learned how to put  the art of stage in motion, contemporary dance most of the time. Karim  Zeriahen then starts a fruitful collaboration with Montpellier based  choreographer Mathilde Monnier. Stop, Videlilah, day of night, short  films adapted from her stage creations. Each time, Karim Zeriahen's   camera takes over the place with movement, the body language is not  frozen but magnified. Choreographer Herman Diephuis also joins this  gallery of dancing portraits. Documentaries on figures such like Albert  Maysles or Hubert de Givenchy and from Joe Dalessandro to Paul  Morrissey, he sets a signature, a camera always in action with  confidence.

Today the director goes further with a new  project and tracks the subtle movements of the body language beyond the  physical appearance. A collection of living portraits as unique pièces  reminding us of the master portraitists of renaissance. These living  natures consists in filming the subject in a certain amount of time,  almost still, with signs of respiration, eye blinks, as if it were  posing for a painting. They are then displayed on a flat screen with a  memory card. With this collection starting, Karim Zeriahen, with his  documentary and artist vision, interrogates himself about the virtual  world filled with images. By taking a pause, and his models with him, he  questions the way we look at things, the way we look at life.

Source: Philippe Noisette 

En savoir plus: www.karimzeriahen.com

Amateur Dance and Repertory is a companion program to amateur practice beyond the dance class and the technical learning phase. Intended for groups of amateur dancers, it opens a space of sharing for those who wish to deepen a practice and a knowledge of the dance in relation to its history.

Laurent Barré
Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
+33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr

Source: CN D

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme