A choreographic extract remodelled by the group Compagnie Ballet Bross’, coordinator Muriel Marie-Augé, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme 2022/2023 (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

Transmission by Fabrice Ramalingom.

Presented on 3 June 2023, Le Triangle, Cité de la danse, in Rennes.

The piece when it was created 

My Pogo 

Firstly produced 20 June 2012 at the Évêché garden in Uzès, festival Uzès danse, during festival Montpellier Danse en région 

Choreography: Fabrice Ramalingom

Work for six performers: Clément Garcia, Pep Garrigues, Ghyslaine Gau, Yuta Ishikawa, Chiharu Mamiya, Emilio Urbina

Music: Pierre-Yves Macé

Original duration: 60 min

The group

Under the artistic direction of Muriel Marie-Augé, Ballet Bross’ is a dance troupe founded in 2005 and made up of 11 dancers, aged from fifteen to sixty. The dancers attend weekly classes as well as regular workshops with choreographers such as Christian Bourigault, Hélène Cathala and Édouard Hue. Created in Florac (Lozère), the troupe rehearses at the Genette Verte, the town cultural centre which opened in 1997 and includes a performance space. Each year the troupe creates original work for local events including the book festival and the soup festival. This is the fifth time that the troupe has participated in the Amateur Dance and Repertoire programme. After performing May B by Maguy Marin, Le Roi des Bons, by Bernard Glandier and So schnell by Dominique Bagouet, they decided to work on My Pogo, by Fabrice Ramalingom. 

The project

The troupe chose My Pogo (2012) after meeting Fabrice Ramalingom and participating in workshops held during the presentation of his work at the Genette Vert in 2013. The group loves the energy of the piece and the way each dancer has their own place, while functioning together as a whole. The group is particularly interested in the theme of the individual vs the collective. Here it is explored within the broader theme of the place of humans in urban space. Ramalingom also tackles the question of constraint vs freedom. These rich explorations ultimately pushed the dancers of Ballet Bross’ to take on Ramalingom’s work and bring its electric energy and punk sensibility to the stage. 

Fabrice Ramalingom started dancing at around the age of 19 years old and then trained between 1986 and 1988 at the National Center of Contemporary Dance in Angers, which was then directed by Michel Reilhac. Then he began his career as a dancer and performer at the National Choreographic Center of Montpellier in France.
He worked there for Dominique Bagouet, an iconic French choreographer known for the intelligence of his writing and the importance of his work in French choreography. He also danced in the work One Story As in Falling conceived by Trisha Brown ,one of the emblematic American choreographers of post-modern dance.
In 1992, after the death of Dominique Bagouet, the dancers from the former company founded the Carnets Bagouet. The ensemble sees itself as an archive for analysis and passing on the works of the deceased choreographer. Fabrice Ramalingom was an active member of the ensemble until 2003 and took part in the transmission of one of the most important pieces of Bagouet's repertoire, So Schnell (1998), which was developed with dancers from the Opéra de Paris.He was also the artistic director in the restaging of Meublé Sommairement, in which dance enters an alliance with the text of the novel Aftalion Alexandre(2000) by Emmanuel Bove.

In 1993, he met Hélène Cathala within The Compagnie Bagouet. Together, they founded the ensemble La Camionetta. Their choreographic cooperation resulted in eleven works. In 2003, Fabrice Ramalingom began his solo career as a choreographer, and staged the work Implication ; later, in 2004, Touché and Mis Bolivias (creation for a cooperation french and bolivian supported by the French Embassy of Bolivia). Within the Camionetta Company, Fabrice Ramalingom gaimed experience as an artist collaborating with the Théâtre de l'équinoxe in Chateauroux (1998), also with the Théâtre of Nîmes (1997-2000) and at the Scène Nationale of Sète and of
the Bassin de Thau(2004-2007). In 2000 and 2001, he was advisor for the programming of the festival Jours de Danse in Nîmes. In 2002, in Montpellier, he experimented the notion of interdisciplinarity by creating, with two directors and three choreographers, the ensemble Changement de Propriétaire, which is an alternative place of production and creation, where lessons are proposed along with performances and experimental project.
After thirteen years, the collaboration between Fabrice Ramalingom and Hélène Cathala ceased and the adventure of The Camionnetta came to an end. In 2006, he founded his own company : R.A.M.a.
In 2007,he created the solo Comment Se Ment and Postural :Etudes, a performance for 15 men for the Festival Montpellier Danse.
In 2008,he created Vancouver Versus Vancouver at the International Dance Festival in Vancouver, a duet for two canadian performers and Fiction in Between, a duet which he perfoms with the austrian Saskia Holbing.
In 2008 and 2009, Fabrice was an artist in residence in the Aude area in the framework of the Rési-Dence Départementale directed by the Conseil Général ADDMD11.
In 2010 for the 30th anniversary of the Festival Montpellier Danse, Fabrice will perform Pandora Box / Body at the Théâtre de l'Agora, cité internationale de la danse.
Alongside his work as a choreographer, he has continued to be active as a performer and has appeared in the following works: Flowing Along by Hervé Robbe (1994),
CPAD by Yvonne Rainer, taken up again and « reactivated » by Quatuor Knust(1998), PAST/FORWARD by the White Oak Project/Mikhail Barishnikov company (2001), Barakooda by Yves Noël Genod, Lugares Comunes (2006) by Benoit Lachambre and Quintet Cercle (2007) by Boris Chamatz. Since his first experience as a performer
at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier, Fabrice Ramalingom has been interested and engaged in the transmission and teaching in its various forms (vocational training,intervention in universities, master classes, danced lectures, courses and workshops for amateur adults or children). He also works with professional companies such as Phillipe Decoufflé or as those of national choreographic centers : the Montpellier center first directed by Dominique Bagouet and then by Mathilde Monnier or the center of Tours headed by Daniel Larrieu.
In 2005 he was appointed artistic advisor for the training EX.E.R.CE at the Centre Chorégraphique National of Montpellier, led by Mathilde Monnier.

More information: rama.asso.fr

Having picked up a passion for the audiovisual at an early age from his two brothers, Nicolas Simon quickly developed a love of cinema and began making short films in his teenage years. He studied at the audiovisual ESRA school in Rennes, where he made two 16mm short films. In 2004, he met Emmanuelle Vo-Din, who introduced him to the world of contemporary dance. 

In 2008 he completed Making Rainbow, a documentary retracing the five months over which the first edition of the performance Rainbow was created. He then co-directed Le Grand Éléphant - L’Aventure des Constructeurs, filmed over two years in the workshop of La Machine as they designed and built the Grand Elephant of Île de Nantes: a giant, animatronic elephant. Alongside regular collaborations with several choreographers, including, Alban Richard, Margot Dorléans, Sylvain Riéjou, Daniel Dobbels as well as the companies Le Pôle and PJPP, Nicolas Simon has made several documentaries, including Les Constructeurs d’Éole and Je me souviens.

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