Choreography by Dominique Brun
An extract remodelled by l’Atelier (Livry-Gargan and Les Pavillons-sous-Bois), artistic managers Sarah Besnainou-Legrand and Murielle Martinenghi, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2015) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
 Made up of classical and contemporary dance students from the Conservatoires à rayonnement communal of Livry-Gargan and Les Pavillons-sous-Bois, this group, set up in 2013 and based in Livry-Gargan and Les Pavillons-sous-Bois (Seine-Saint-Denis) is led by Sarah Besnainou-Legrand and Murielle Martinenghi. The twenty female participants are aged between fifteen and forty and meet on the occasion of training courses and creations in connection with the Forum du Blanc-Mesnil and the Théâtre Aragon in Tremblay-en-France. The Conservatoires’ studios are placed at the dancers’ disposal for rehearsal purposes.

The project
 By taking on The Rite of Spring, a flagship piece of choreographic history, the group has chosen to confront Dominique Brun’s specific choreographic approach, with her dancers Caroline Baudouin and Roméo Agid. The meeting resulted in the discovery of archive documents and in the learning of some dances from the Rite. An analytical study of Stravinsky’s musical score was also a valuable source of inspiration. Extracts from the first tableau allowed a variety of dances to be experimented: those of the young people and the flower-picking maidens, but also the powerful Dance of the Earth. In opposition, the second tableau allowed them to discover the frailty of the dance of the Young girls. The group was thus able to develop its capacity to dance together through a fine and attentive mutual listening process. 

The choreographer
 A dancer, choreographer and researcher, Dominique Brun confronts the history of dance through her works. Whether they are “historical re-enactments” or “creations”, she invents them on the basis of the remaining archive documents handed down to us. She particularly made a name for herself with her re-creation of The Afternoon of a Faun, the first piece choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky in 1912, to Claude Debussy’s music. In 2008, she took on The Rite of Spring, also by Nijinsky, to Igor Stravinsky’s music. At the request of the director Jan Kounen, who wished to include extracts from the Rite into his film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky (2010), she first re-created eight minutes of the piece before setting out to re-create the entirety of this legendary ballet. Supported by two researchers from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (School for advanced studies in social sciences), Sophie Jacotot and Juan Vallejos, she relied on her thorough knowledge of Nijinsky style, as well as on Valentine Hugo’s drawings (1887-1968), the testimonies of the Rite collaborators, and the press commentaries of the time. 

Dancer and choreographer, Dominique Brun has also been a dance examiner since 1995. She is the co-founder of the La Salamandre dance company and the Quatuor Albrecht Knust. She has worked with the latter on the re-creation of dances from the historical repertoire based on scores created using the Laban system. In 2003, she continued this work with the Ligne de Sorcière association. She is the author of the DVD “Le Faune – un film ou la fabrique de l'archive” (2007). In 2008, she recreated “L'Après-midi d'un faune” (The Afternoon of a faun) for Olivier Dubois's show “Faune(s)”.

Updated: May 2013

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