[Terror] 

“What does it mean to be whole, and is the identity one and indivisible?” Sylvain Prunenec asks himself. Since 1998 this uncertainty has run through the choreographer's research. Examined closely by experimentation, the body's supposed coherence reveals unsuspected chinks. So the movement loosens up and breaks down, its usual mechanisms are thrown off track. The unity of the body falls apart, opening up a territory of possibilities, a world to be born. In the course of this exploration, Prunenec found echoes of his preoccupations in many mythological tales that deal with the dismembered body. But certain episodes of the Orpheus myth aroused particular resonances in him, especially the final moment where the severed head of Orpheus floats away on the water still singing. Here the voice takes on an extreme importance: it is the ultimate and subtle manifestation of that continuity of identity to which the body, once broken up, can no longer testify.

If “Effroi” tests movement to breaking point, the different states of the dance are bound to each other by Prunenec's voice reciting the poems of Célia Houdart, and by the intensity of the electronic music, played live by composer Fred Bigot.

An existential game between dispersal and re-composition, “Effroi” ceaselessly asks the same question of the territory. The intimate territory of the body, explored like a fluctuating cartography of the internal pathways, which is in constant need of reconfiguration. But also the external territory. Sylvain Prunenec called upon stage designer Élise Capdenant to construct a space to the proportions – or disproportions – of the body.

The set conceived by Capdenant – a sort of map drawn on the ground – takes on a thousand connotations. Bathed in Gilles Gentner's lighting, the dancers appear minuscule, hanging onto the contour lines of an immense blown-up map. Or is it rather a brain seen in cross section which forms the setting for the evolutions of a microscopic Prunenec? Might at least his dance be curling up and uncurling around this ageless shape – shell, fossil or matrix? A dialogue weaves itself between the external and internal territories, each measuring and modulating the perception of the other, in a continual reinvention.

Annie Suquet 

Further information

Digital resource by the Médiathèque du Centre national de la danse
http://mediatheque.cnd.fr/spip.php?page=mediatheque-numerique-ressource&id=PHO00003845

Updating: March 2010

A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire who has been performing since 1985, Sylvain Prunenec began developing his own projects in 1995 with his company, l'Association du 48. For him, collaborations with artists from other fields, particularly musicians (Françoise Rivalland, Fred Bigot alias Electronicat, Manuel Coursin, Sébastien Roux) and writers (Célia Houdart, Mathieu Riboulet), are opportunities for him to question and consider his own dance practice and the place of the performer in the process of creation and presentation.

Between 2000 and 2005, during travels and residencies in several African countries, he forged strong links with African artists, particularly the Adugna company and Faustin Linyekula's Studios Kabako, links which led to an exchange project between Ethiopia, the Congo and France: "KinAddis / Chantiers chorégraphiques", 2004-2005.
  More recently, in response to a commission from the Concordan(s)e festival, he collaborated with author Mathieu Riboulet on a duet project “Jetés dehors”, which was first performed in April 2010.

During the 2008-2009 season in residence at the Théâtre de Vanves (Ile-de-France), “Ouvrez!” marked the beginning of a new and ongoing stage in his work, which currently takes the form of a triptych of solos (two of which already existed: "Love me, love me, love me" and "Psycho Killer", 2009), on the themes of love, criminal impulse and sexual ecstasy. This project, under the overall title of "Gare!", was first performed at the Centre National de la Danse Contemporaine (CNDC), Angers in January 2011.

In addition to his performances and improvisations, whether outdoors or in arts venues ("Effroi électrique", "Glacial Topo", "A point", "Station 1"...), Sylvain Prunenec teaches regularly at the CNDC, Angers, where he trains choreographic artists (FAC course).
 

Further information: Company website 

Digital resources by the CND Médiathèque
http://mediatheque.cnd.fr/spip.php?page=mediatheque-numerique-ressource&id=PHO00003856
http://mediatheque.cnd.fr/spip.php?page=mediatheque-numerique-ressource&id=PHO00003845

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.).