A choreographic extract remodelled by the Groupe chorégraphique amateur, coordinator Fanny Milant, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme 2023/2024 (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

Transmission by Jean Masse 

Presented on 15 June 2024, Le Manège de Reims. 

The piece when it was created 

Là où l’herbe est plus verte

Firstly produced 14 March 2018 at Dock 11, Berlin

Choreography: Jean Masse

Work for one performer: Jean Masse

Music: Gute Nacht de Franz Schubert – extract from Winterreise, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Jörg Demus 

Original duration: 5 minutes 38

L’Oiseau-qui-n’existe pas

Firstly produced in 1963 in Paris 

Choreography: Karin Waehner

Work for one performer: Karin Waehner

Music: Paul Arma

Duration: 6 minutes

The group

Groupe chorégraphique amateur (Artigues-près-Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine)

Created five years ago (in 2019), this amateur dance group is made up of between 6 to 9 dancers. It was founded on a shared passion for choreography, which has attracted dancers across several generations, with ages ranging from 13 to 66. United by a common desire to work together, share experiences, experiment with choreography and develop a taste for performance, each member has found their own place within the group. Accustomed to trying out different forms of physical expression, the dancers are just as comfortable exploring the erratic movements of air through dance, as they are following to the precise choreography of Maud Le Pladec. The group brought this same open-minded attitude to their meeting with Jean Masse, who is also based in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.  

The project

The idea was to explore the beginnings of modernity in dance by combining a piece by Karin Waenher with a solo created fifty years later by one of her students and dancers, Jean Masse. Là où l’herbe est plus verte, Masse’s latest work, created in 2018, is a solo about memory, choreographed in tribute to Karin Waehner. Waehner’s iconic 1963 work, L’Oiseau-qui-n’existe-pas, holds symbolic value for Jean Masse, both for its structure and for its modern approach. He will endeavour to put these two separate works in dialogue with each other, like two portraits of the same face.

Waehner was born in 1926 in Gleiwitz in Germany (now Gliwice, Poland). In 1950 she moved to Buenos Aires, where she taught modern dance until 1953, when she met the mime Marcel Marceau. He inspired her to leave for Paris and to study mime with Etienne Decroux. In Paris she also opened a dance school and choreographed. She appeared with Jerome Andrews as Les Compagnons de la Danse, co-founded the experimental Theatre d'Essai de la Danse in 1955 and started her own touring Ballets Contemporains Karin Waehner in 1959.

She choreographed some 40 pieces and wrote a treatise, Outillage choregraphique, analysing the components of creating movement. But it was as a teacher that she had her most lasting impact. Angelin Preljocaj, France's most prominent contemporary-dance choreographer, whose own company has played several successful seasons in London, trained with her at the Schola Cantorum in Paris where she initiated contemporary-dance teaching. "I had already studied ballet and she opened my eyes to contemporary dance - to its passion for creation, improvisation and new forms," he says. "Coming from the Wigman expressionist tradition, her movement had a generosity, a way of going to extremes. Expressionism signifies something emerging from the inside and there was in her style a maximum of amplitude and sincerity." Karin Waehner also possessed those qualities as a person and selflessly battled for her pupils. 

Karin Waehner, dancer, choreographer and teacher: born Gleiwitz, Germany 12 March 1926; died 17 February 1999.

Source : The Independant 

La Production Rémoise – Romu DUCROS

Romuald Ducros’ love of photography is a family affair. He was first introduced to photography at a very early age by is father, who was a member of the Bièvre “Club Photo” (founded by André Face). Later it would become both his passion and his profession.  

In 2011, Romuald created Production Rémoise, which specialises in the production of film and photography. His work stands out for its artistic sensibility and creative approach, with each production being a unique work of art.   

His productions range from video capture for performances of dance, theatre, opera and contemporary music, to films touching on sensitive social issues, or celebrating the valuable work of local artisans.  

As an artist-creator, Romuald joined the Leica Akadémie France, while also working on artistic events and exhibitions.

https://www.laproductionremoise.fr/ 

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