A cinematographic adaptation of Insurrection by Odile Duboc, created in 1989. The film is shot at night in the cold and spatial architecture of the Grande Halle de La Villette. A wave of twenty dancers in unison sway imperturbably to a hypnotic and monotone beat. Suddenly, a body collapses. This grain of sand will jam the choreographic machine and generate dissent.

Black and white photographs, some famous, of historical events or marching crowds punctuate the stages of this danced revolution and accentuate the political character of the work. The interpreters, attentively filmed, stare sometimes gravely at the camera lens in moments of suspension and silence. Insurrection, created for the bicentenary of the French Revolution, is a flagship work in Odile Duboc’s career, in which she expressed her questioning as to the individual vis-à-vis the group. The film focuses on one moment in the choreography: the awakening of a population that enters into resistance against the established order. It ends where the second part of the show began: towards the reconstruction of a more human world.

Source : Patrick Bossatti

A classical  dancer and self-taught teacher in Aix-en-Provence, Odile Duboc created her own school Les Ateliers de la danse in the 1970s. In 1983, she created  the association Contre jour, with her partner and lighting designer, Françoise Michel. In  1990 and until the end of 2008, she directed the Franche-Comté National Choreographic Center in Belfort, where she succeeded Joanne Leighton. In 1993, she created the work Projet de la matière, a milestone in the history of the new French dance. She  will be recognized as an important choreographer of French dance, and  will stage many shows and operas for various institutions, including the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers. She died of cancer on April 23, 2010 at the age of 69.