How do we tackle an autobiographical type piece – Good Boy – to unfold more generic stories, such was the gamble with Good for..., a piece for four dancers. Such is the challenge today with Mauvais Genre. A new version, but now intended for twenty to thirty people, a majority of whom is engaged otherwise in their own creative streams. The solo bears a strange infinitude: although it has indeed a greater capacity to expose the body than any other form, it seems, at the same time, inseparable from its interpreter. A different body, bodies different: can we still say this is the same solo? I wished to see what the outcome would be, transposed to other bodies, each one bearing its individual history, of the propositions of this first piece of work.

If Good Boy meddles with ill-health and the fragility of our body, it really is a matter of exposition of a singular body whose strata inspire and perspire its own history. But for all that, we do not deal here with autobiography in disguise, even less demultiplied biographies. While making use of the differences in each person, Good for... shifts the political and social stakes of the initial solo to the question of community with its tricky figuration. To demultiply presences produces as many trails to represent the choreographical and social stakes of Good Boy. Nonetheless, it is less of a joint com- munity which appears, reconciled or not, than a demultiplication of the singularities.

The presences of Matthieu Doze, Rachid Ouramdane and Christian Rizzo in the second step trapped the solo device, in that they disfigured each of the sequences which constituted the initial material. Something of the identification of the dancer to the solo and of the solo to the dancer becomes thus impeded. A particular experience can see the surge of much ado. Good Boy dared at the tragic, there will have been substituted to it unintentionally a playful, ironic, and at the least amused parti pris. One may say that we go from the I-body to the play-body. The necessity of the counterpoint produced by each one having inclined the whole of the project towards an amused complicity.

During our first presentation of Good for... at the Crestet – art center –, we established a specific plasticity and elasticity relation, due to the architecture of the place. The L shaped space of the exhibition galleries where we danced and the bay windows, or the show windows rather, which separated us from the public standing in the square garden reinforced the distance and the separation between the audience and the performers, thus compelling him/her to assume the choice he/she had made of looking at this or that one amongst us. The space permitted to play with the visible and the non-visible, a demultiplication and a reduction of our presences. This device within the White Cube equally favored a certain distanciation of the treated object. We exhibited this proposition at the Dijon auditorium – a very large theater –, and we noticed the great diversity of readings that could be made thanks to this new architectural space, very different indeed from the previous one. Although it was not premeditated, there occurred a return to the tragic which belonged to the first version.

With Mauvais Genre the number of people will necessarily have as an effect to unfold and demultiply the tension lines of the initial solo; but the challenge for me is also to work from the possible site’s architectonics where the piece will be performed so as to weave other reading patterns, to multiply the looks upon this story. To explore other possibles in the performing spaces in which we produce ourselves supposes work ahead. It obliges us to think over the components of the original piece as a new step, to better unprime what was built during the previous one. I could also say that an artist is making the same piece over again, I here assume and claim this sweet and slow job of scrubbing, crossing out, return and aftermaths which maybe all tell of the same obsession, but do not hinder alteration and variations.

With Mauvais Genre, the challenge is different yet since we are good girls and good boys united. We are emphasizing the sound production of our bodies: splashes and booms. And also the capacity for each one to make himself/herself porous to their own feminity and their own masculinity: high heels for the boys yes, but no falbalas, y-fronts for the girls yes, but with no frills. Mauvais Genre could have been titled Vice and Versa.

The good boys became bad girls, and reciprocally.

The good girls go to paradise, the bad go everywhere.

And make no fuss.

Alain Buffard [November 2002]

Alain Buffard starts dancing in 1978 with Alwin Nikolaïs at the Centre national de danse contemporaine in Angers. He dances in several productions from Brigitte Farges and Daniel Larrieu, as well as Régine Chopinot, Philippe Decouflé. He realizes a choreography for two plays with Marie-Christine Georghiu, accompanied by the Rita Mitsuko rock group, a first solo "Bleu nuit" in 1988, and Wagner's Master singers of Nuremberg staged by Claude Régy in 1989.

While carrying on his career of dancer, he works as an assistant in Anne de Villepoix 's Gallery for exhibitions on R. Zaugg, Fischli & Weiss, Chris Burden and V. Acconci. At the same time, he is a correspondent for two Norwegian daily papers, for which he covers visual arts events in France. He stops dancing between 1991 and 1996. In 1996 he makes two decisive meetings : one with Yvonne Rainer on the occasion of the updating of her play Continuous Project ­ Altered Daily by the Albrecht KNUST Quatuor, and another one with Anna Haplrin, with whom he is working as the winner of the "Villa Medicis - hors les murs" prize.

In January 1998 he creates "Good boy", his second solo, and then makes in 1999 two trios INtime / EXtime and MORE et encore. "Tout va bien" is premiered in June 2010 at Festival Montpellier Danse and his last piece "Baron Samedi" is created in April 2012 at the Théâtre de Nîmes where he was an associated artist for both seasons 2010-2011 and 2011-2012.

He also realized "My lunch with Anna", a film with Anna Halprin in California with the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in France and le Fresnoy national studio for contemporary arts, where he was associated artist during the season 2004-2005.

Source: Alain Buffard 's website

Born in 1973, Sophie Laly graduated from the Dijon School of Fine Arts in Dijon, France. She creates video installations and videos that question and dissect notions of time and space-time. Her work is inspirational, spanning several different fields such as cinema, biology and physics. She became a film projectionist in Paris in 1999. Because of personal interest, she has developed a close connection with contemporary dance, creating films for choreographers ; Daniel Larrieu, Alain Buffard, Christian Rizzo, Emmanuelle Huynh, Latifa Laâbissi, Boris Charmatz, Christian Rizzo, David Wampach, Deborah Hay, Marco Berettini, Yves-Noel Genod, Carlotta Sagna, Lionel Hoche, Laure Bonicel, Thierry Baë, Sylvain Prunenec, as well as for the SACD (since 2007, for the « Sujets à Vifs » at the Festival d'Avignon).

She has participated as artistic collaborator and/or video artist in different projects : Emmanuelle Huynh (Ligne d'arrivée, 2004), Rachid Ouramdame (A l'oeil nu, 2003/2005, Les morts pudiques, 2004, Cover, 2005), Richard Siegal (Stranger/stranger report, 2006), Daniel Larrieu, (video-controls for Waterproof, 2006), Latifa Laabissi (Habiter, 2007), Dysfashionai - adventure in post-style (Luxembourg 2007), Elisabeth Naud and Luc Poux, architects (spatial design of a slideshow for their exhibition at the Galerie d'Architecture Paris - 2008), has directed filmed portraits for the Agence Pargade Architecte for the exhibition Subjectiver le lieu at the Galerie d'Architecture Paris (2012), has worked with Kader Attia for the editing of his videographic performances since 2011. Since 2008, she has collaborated with Christian Rizzo as video artist and assistant director on several projects : mon amour (2008), ni cap, ni grand canyon (2009, for the Opéra de Lyon), l'oubli, toucher du bois (2010), le bénéfice du doute (2012), Erwartung, Pierrot Lunaire, La Voix humaine (2010, operas produced by the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse) and Tannhäuser (2012, production of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse). She created also with Christian Rizzo an installation / concert néo-fiction (2012) for the festival On the boards at Seattle.

She has been commissioned by the Musée de la danse / CCN Rennes/Bretagne - Boris Charmatz, to direct a film about the children of the project Enfants, a creation by Boris Charmatz for the Festival d'Avignon (2011). In 2011, she got a Fundation Beaumarchais grant for the writing of a feature film. PA, the shortest of her films, has just been rewarded by the CHERIES-CHERIS 2012, International Gay, lesbian, bi and trans film Festival in Paris (LGBT).

FILMOGRAPHY

Dance films :

more than 60 between 2002-2012

Art video :

2011 : big crunch

2010 : Singel man

2010 : LESS THAN A MINUTE

2008 : PA - Awards: Festival Chéries Chéris, Paris 2012 –Very short film / Nokia Paris-Roma Contest 2008

2007 : nous ne sommes pas

2005 : le vent a recommencé et de nouveau le ciel est devenu noir

2004 : N/EVER - prizewinning film – « Entraînements “ - Film And Video Contest - Association Edna and Siemens Arts Program

2002 : EVERY-

1999 : « on croit toujours qu'ailleurs c'est mieux » - interactive movie with a remote control

Art installation :

1999 : DON'T LET ME DOWN

1999 : « si tu savais à quel point… » Pénélope, 1999.

1998 : Trouble taking place

1998 : How could you dare ?

1998 : Repère. Point de départ.