This series showcasing the leading works of two creators was initiated  last year at the CN D. After Monnier/Marin and Mantero/Triozzi, Carlson  and Diverrès take pride of place this spring. In their work, bodies  become calligraphies, emblems of a subterranean world that is tragic and  mysterious. Their dance is all about women, the movement of a body not  split up playing with gravity, the energy of urges, expressiveness and a  certain violence of the emotions. They are Carolyn Carlson and  Catherine Diverrès, two choreographers producing a world of images and  energies that draw on other worlds and encounters. Catherine Diverrès’s  career has been marked above all by her trip to Japan to meet Kazuo Ôno,  one of the founding choreographers of butô dancing. As for Carolyn  Carlson, she left Alwin Nikolaïs for France in the early 1970s and has  influenced several generations of performers and creators. In this  programme, the two choreographers bring to the surface of their bodies,  not their memory, and still less a distant past, but the vestige of what  was for them a foundational experience. In Ô Sensei, Catherine  Diverrès, accompanied by Katja Fleig, takes us back to the origins of  her calligraphy, in a dialogue with the spirit of her (Sensei) master  Kazuo Ôno, who died in 2010. Imbued with tiny variations and  incantations, throbbing with ambiguous incarnations, her gestures sketch  out a farewell that is repeated infinitely in the manner of unfolding  time. In Short Stories, Carolyn Carlson touches on the invisible. From her famous solo Density 21,5 – which revolutionised the dance world 42 years ago and was passed on to Isida Micani – to Mandala danced by Sara Orselli, Carlson conjures dreams out of the air. But the eternal Water Lady lends her intense presence to Immersion, plumbing the unfathomable depths of the soul.

Carolyn Carlson’s solos showcase her spiritual and existential approach to dance. She describes them as ways of sharing the state of solitude that is peculiar to the human  condition.

Mandala is an incarnation of the human heart beat, a constituent of the space universally shared by every being, from the beginning to the  end of our existence. Here, lived time takes the form of the ensō, the circle of  Zen Buddhism that symbolises both the universe and artistic  perfection, which can only be achieved by a totally free spirit.

The  circular patterns found in crop fields are another source of  inspiration. They remain without explanation, like a message from a  spirit force or from elsewhere, whose unexpectedly beautiful shapes leave a visual mark deep down in the soul. A similar mark is left by Michael Gordon’s powerful music. It carries the energy of the movements and strengthens them with the insistent undulation of a beat.

Sara  Orselli gives substance to a piece that represents a  culmination of the  complicity established between Carolyn Carlson and  her dancer over more  than a decade.

More information: carolyn-carlson.com

Source: CN D & Carolyn Carlson Company

California-born Carolyn Carlson defines herself first and foremost as a nomad. From San Francisco Bay to the University of Utah, from the Alwin Nikolais company in New York to Anne Béranger’s in France, from Paris Opera Ballet to Teatrodanza La Fenice in Venice, from the Théâtre de la Ville de Paris to Helsinki, from Ballet Cullberg to La Cartoucherie in Paris, from the Venice Biennale to Roubaix, Carlson is a tireless traveller, always seeking to develop and share her poetic universe.

She arrived in France in 1971 the beneficiary of Alwin Nikolais’s ideas about movement, composition and teaching. The following year, with Rituel pour un rêve mort, she wrote a poetic manifesto that defined an approach to her work that she has adhered to ever since: dance that is strongly oriented towards philosophy and spirituality. Carlson prefers the term ‘visual poetry’ to ‘choreography’ to describe her work. She creates works that express her poetic thoughts and a form of complete art within which movement occupies a special place. 

For four decades, Carlson has had significant influence and success in many European countries. She played a key role in the birth of French and Italian contemporary dance through the GRTOP (theatre research group) at Paris Opera Ballet and Teatrodanza at La Fenice.

She has created over 100 pieces, a large number of which are landmarks in the history of dance, including Density 21.5, The Year of the Horse, Blue Lady, Steppe, Maa, Signes, Writings on Water and Inanna. In 2006, her work was rewarded with the first ever Golden Lion given to a choreographer by the Venice Biennale.

Nowadays, Carolyn Carlson is director of two organisations: the Atelier de Paris-Carolyn Carlson, an international centre for masterclasses, residencies and creating new works, which she founded in 1999 and the National Choreographic Centre Roubaix Nord-Pas de Calais until December 2013, which produces and tours shows all over the world.

More information: en.carolyn-carlson.com

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.).