First performed 2012

Choreography Hervé Robbe

“Slogans” was Hervé Robbe's first creation in his new Travelling & Co production entity. A blend of dance and short videographic films.

A first opus of “Slogans” in the form of a trio was presented at the CND. The whole project culminated (quintet) in the autumn of 2012.

“Slogans never occur out of the blue, they are often designed methodologically by the people who wish to pass on a message. A communication tool that's intended to impact strongly, slogans are short and repetitive, frequently reducers and seducers. Advertising, political or ideologist, they help promote the instant, they punctuate and endorse the frenetic acceleration of our times.

Whereas a contrario, because life is too short to be in a rush and because we should make the best use of our time, let's imagine and name another dance “Slogans”.

It's time to take the foot of the pedal and why not both feet. Have we become helpless by dint of being afraid to inseminate boredom? Rather than the instant of pleasure, prioritize the length of preliminaries. Let's not eat our future alive, but take the time to imagine new recipes. It's great to cultivate your garden reasonably but contemplating it is just as nourishing. The happiness action is on the decline, I thought that was non-negotiable. By dint of speculating on generosity and prohibiting kindness, we're wasting these two sources of renewable energy. If our real resource is our well-being, then we must remember to share it...”

Hervé Robbe

Credits

concept, choreography and scenography Hervé ROBBE
performers Julien ANDUJAR, Bastien LEFÈVRE, Alexis JESTIN
light François MAILLOT
video Vincent BOSC
music Ludwig van BEETHOVEN, concerto pour piano n°3 en ut mineur op. 37
technical direction François MAILLOT
a film by Centre national de la danse
duration 20 minutes

Updated: June 2012

Born in Lille in 1961. After studying architecture for a few years, Hervé Robbe set his sights on dance. He was principally trained at Mudra, Maurice Béjart's school in Brussels. He began his performing career dancing the neo-classical repertoire, then went on to work with various modern dance makers.

In 1987 he founded his company: le Marietta secret.

The course of his career is clearly founded on a constant renewal of his choreographic writing. Supported by loyal artistic collaborators, his work has become increasingly sophisticated over the years, associating the dance presence with visual, sound and technological worlds. His projects, polysemic works, take many forms: frontal performance, ambulatory shows and installations.

The place of the audience, its presence and view is decisive; the stage space is regularly called into question.

His arrival at the CCN (National choreographic Centre) of Le Havre Haute-Normandie offered more opportunities for his research.

In 1999 he composed his autobiographical solo Polaroïd. Within it, video images of places associated with his childhood appear and coexist with an uninterrupted physical display.

In 2000 he explored the theme of home with Permis de construire – Avis de Démolition, a diptych consisting of an installation and a performance. He went on to tackle the theme of the garden in 2002 with Des Horizons Perdus.

In a world constructed with screens – virtual containers for the body, evokers of death – in the duet REW he engaged in a dialogue between man and woman on the theme of suicide. In 2004, with the group piece Mutating Score, he returned to the idea of the performance area being a common space occupied by both audience and dancers. This installation-dance, while reaffirming this conviction about the force of movement, marks the culmination of a project on the use of new technologies, which are integrated into the show in real time.

In 2006 he designed the installation So long as baby...love and songs will be, a kind of manifesto of the preoccupations which underlie his work. The device is a containing structure in which the audience is invited to watch and listen to the dancer-singers present on screen. Hervé Robbe distanced himself from the stage with this, then returned to it in the works Là, on y danse in 2007 and Next days in 2010.

While maintaining his personal approach in his own productions, he regularly accepts commissions from the Opéra de Lyon, the Gulbenkian Ballet, the CNSMDP (Paris Conservatoire) and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Source: Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie

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.).