Decodex [transmission 2017]
2017 - Director : Zeriahen, Karim
Choreographer(s) : Decouflé, Philippe (France)
Present in collection(s): Centre national de la danse , Danse en amateur et répertoire
Video producer : Centre national de la danse
Integral video available at CND de Pantin
Decodex [transmission 2017]
2017 - Director : Zeriahen, Karim
Choreographer(s) : Decouflé, Philippe (France)
Present in collection(s): Centre national de la danse , Danse en amateur et répertoire
Video producer : Centre national de la danse
Integral video available at CND de Pantin
Decodex [transmission 2017]
An extract remodelled by L’Atelier chorégraphique (Deuil-la-Barre), artistic manager Christine Léger, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2016) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).
The group
Set up in 2009, in Deuil-la-Barre in Île-de-France, coordinated by Christine Léger, this group of eight female dancers with a contemporary dance background and an average age of around 50, is curious about all choreographic worlds. It has discovered and plunged into the writing of Alban Richard, the Ben Aïm brothers, and Christian Bourigault. Wishing to develop work based on listening, togetherness, and knowledge-sharing, it gives stage performances several times a year.
The project
Philippe Decouflé’s Decodex (1985) unfurls a wondrous world of fabulous creatures and quirky appearances out of all proportion to the limitless imagination of the choreographer. Exploring strangeness and humour and passing through the strata of this immensely successful show are some of the aims of the group, that is set to collaborate with the dancers Éric Martin and Alexandra Naudet, key interpreters of the company DCA.
The choreographer
A key personality of contemporary dance since the early 1980s and the standard bearer of a certain idea of what is popular and erudite in art, Philippe Decouflé, who spent time in the early 1980s in the CNDC d’Angers directed by the American multimedia master Alwin Nikolais, blends dance, video, text, lighting and optical effects in joyfully phantasmagorical shows. At the head of his own company, DCA, since 1983, based at the Chaufferie in Saint-Denis (93), he maintains the high pressure of a handcrafted and erudite choreographic gesture, the result of an adventurous and independent spirit.
Decouflé, Philippe
Dancer, choreographer, director and art director
As a child, I dreamt of becoming a comic book artist. Drawing is usually the start of my creative process. I just throw out ideas and sketch out pictures that pass through my head. My culture is comics, musicals, nightclub dancing, and also Oskar Schlemmer, the Bauhaus choreographer. Discovering photos of characters from his Triadisches Ballett was a revelation for me. I had always wanted to work with simple geometric shapes like cubes and triangles. I liked seeing how these lines and volumes behaved with each other. Alwin Nikolaïs taught me the importance of light and costume, and the confidence you need to mix everything together. Technically, it was Merce Cunningham who taught me the most about dance. I was taking video courses he was giving in New York. It was fascinating. That’s where I learned how to solve problems of distance and geometry, and the basic principles of optics and movement. Tex Avery inspired me a lot in thinking up gestures that are almost impossible to do. I’ve always kept something of that desire to create something strange, extreme or crazy in my movements. I’m looking for a dance style that’s off-balance, always on the verge of toppling over. With influences like the Marx Brothers, for example, and in particular Groucho Marx, I’ve developed a taste for naughty risk-taking, and comic repetition of mistakes.
Source : Philippe Découflé
More information : cie-dca.com
Zeriahen, Karim
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
Decodex [transmission 2017]
Choreography : Philippe Decouflé
Interpretation : Patricia Alcala, Lelia Fremovicci, Catherine Lévy, Pauline Pateau, Véronique Schaal, Sandrine Slimani, Véronique Verguet-Bienvenu
Other collaborations : Extrait remonté par l'Atelier chorégraphique (Deuil-la-Barre), responsable artistique Christine Léger, dans le cadre de Danse en amateur et répertoire (2016) - Transmission Éric Martin et Alexandra Naudet
Duration : 16 minutes
Danse en amateur et répertoire
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
Roots of Diversity in Contemporary Dance
Modern Dance and Its American Roots [1900-1930] From Free Dance to Modern Dance
At the dawn of the 20th century, in a rapidly changing West, a new dance appeared: Modern Dance. In the United States as in Europe, modern trends emerge simultaneously and intertwine in thier development. Let's dive into the beginnings of American modern dance!
(LA)HORDE: RESIST TOGETHER
Les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis
Vlovajobpru company
Indian dances
Discover Indian dance through choreographic creations which unveil it, evoke it, revisit it or transform it!
Amala Dianor: dance to let people see
Body and conflicts
A look on the bonds which appear to emerge between the dancing body and the world considered as a living organism.
The national choreographic centres
[1970-2018] Neoclassical developments: They spread worldwide, as well as having multiple repertoires and dialogues with contemporary dance.
James Carlès
Do you mean Folklores?
Presentation of how choreographers are revisiting Folklore in contemporary creations.
The Dance Biennial Défilé
The Dance Biennale
Maison de la danse
Dancing bodies
Focus on the variety of bodies offered by contemporary dance and how to show these bodies: from complete nudity to the body completely hidden or covered.
Dance and music
The relationship between music and choreographic works varies throught dance history.