A chamber opera for two dancers and four singers: Air, composed by Vincent Dupont in 2013, places the audience at the heart of the dialogue between movement and music. Inspired by Les Tambours d’avant,  a documentary shot by Jean Rouch in Niger in 1971, the choreographer  reinvents the final scene of this short film – an old woman starting a  dance of possession, wrapped in a blanket – to imagine another ritual  relating to his own culture.
The dancer Aline Landreau accompanies Vincent Dupont in this exploration  that gives pride of place to the voice, under the musical direction of  Valérie Joly. The singers are positioned behind the audience; breathing  rhythms and litanies, based on texts by the poet Charles Pennequin, make  the air vibrate on either side of the room, with the dancers joining in  the vocal composition. Attracted by material of an incantatory nature  and fond of crossing disciplines, in Air Vincent Dupont opens the possibility of a sensitive and sensorial experience.

Source: programme of the CND

Vincent Dupont was trained as an actor. His first encounter with dance  took place thanks to the choreographers Thierry Thieû Niang and Georges  Appaix. He then participated in creations by Boris Charmatz: herses (une lente introduction) and Con forts fleuve. Other collaborations were in cinema projects, notably with Claire Denis. In November 2001, he created his first choreography: Jachères improvisations  inspired by a photo of an installation by the contemporary visual  artist Stan Douglas. This was a performance which called reality into  question by working on the notions, both visual and acoustic, of affinity and  remoteness. Since this time, Vincent Dupont has been forging his own  artistic path whilst continuing to collaborate with other artists. His  creations pose themselves as experiments, questions addressed to the  spectator’s perception. From 2015 to 2019, Vincent Dupont was Artist  associated with ICI-Centre chorégraphique national de Montpellier. Since  September 2019, he is Artist associated with the Centre des Arts  d’Enghien-les-Bains.

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.).