The Spectator's Moment or how to discover an artist, a piece of work or a company in just two minutes. It is a collection of programmes produced by the Maison de la Danse in Lyon and presented by Dominique Hervieu. Each episode is devoted to an artist or a company that is programmed at the Maison de la Danse and offers the public keys or artistic benchmarks for better understanding and appreciating the choreographic art.
 



© Maison de la Danse de Lyon

Heddy Maalem is sometimes rather withdrawn, a man of silence. 

He is wary of fakers, pretenders, those who fiddle with things that should be exact. Like him, his dancing is simple, blunt, seeking interior change without ostentation or ornament.
The secret tension simmering beneath the surface can be felt both in his work and in his person. A man who technically is from two countries, France - he clarifies: from Languedoc - and Algeria, Heddy Maalem prefers to think of himself as a son of the Mediterranean, this sea trying valiantly to fill the gap separating the two peoples. You have to nudge him, and when you do, Heddy Maalem actually tells us one of his boyhood memories, precise, emblematic: “In Algeria, we lived in the Aurès, in Batna. We lived in the ‘black quarter,' where the black Africans lived. The country was at war, and we were constantly hearing drums playing, accompanying the dances of the immigrants from the South. Since then, war and dance have always been linked in my mind.”
The choreographer emerged from this violence, this separation. He came to it rather late, after several years studying Oriental languages, traveling, odd jobs and especially amateur boxing, until he was 28. His encounter with dance was accidental, achieved mostly through teaching aikido for many years. He perceived dance as something unexpected, clear, a way of moving, of being, of working with his memories, historic, ancestral, personal.
“Having survived the tearing apart of my two countries, I sometimes feel like a stranger. In dance I am not borrowing from any existing school of thought, I must invent my own language, an ‘unmarked' language.”
Heddy Maalem spent a great deal of time researching the workings of his own body, asking himself simple questions: why and how to move? How do I use the floor? How do I run, walk? Little by little he found a style, movements which begin from the center of the body or from the floor, movements which cut into space or touch a partner, without lyricism but with a certain aesthetic, a pure physicality.
His approach also deals with time, using the body as a poet uses language, as material. His intent to stand apart from the current frenzy is his commitment to a kind of radicality.

Source : the company Heddy Maalem 's website 

More information

heddymaalem.com

Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).

During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc).
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.

From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.

Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international  video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.

Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website

More information: fabione.fr