« It was dawn, Stravinsky premiered Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), something completely unexpected, unheard of. We heard a hymn, an ode to Nature, the music of a world, of life, of something growing green again. We know now he was composing a song, the voices of the forces inside the spiral of the unescapable darkness. Spring after spring, one war vomits out the next - and the soft green-ness of the new leaves does not last.
It is the beginning of a new dawn.
Le Sacre has been performed a thousand times, unforgettable yet always new, with the same shocking joy overflowing out of time, out of the ages, an edge, the alliance of the arches, the high sound of the grass being cut by a scythe, stalking an animal, its charge, a stream running over and under the earth, the inexplicable rhythm of fires burning at night, a line of shrieks blotting out a whimper. Unstoppable violence. How we would have liked to not have heard the death knell of the old drums, their power, their deep vibrations which encourage the idea: animate, then kill.
Our dawn finds us enmeshed in the process of recognizing the forces knotting our bodies, we are dancing. To the same chord, united in complete dis-harmony to celebrate this Sacre, dancing what is dead, what lives again and will die. Show the ritual, that which mixes death with life, bones and ash. To say again what a man does to celebrate the gift of such a terrible joy. To breathe this rhythm for the first and last time, when the veil drops before our eyes.
And Africa – a whole continent contained in the space which separates the day as it ends, from the beginning of the next one, daybreak. The end and the beginning of the world, a world on its knees when Stravinsky saw Red suns coming up in the East. A continent from which springs – at the same time as a promise – the thickening anguish of spring.
An earth withstanding the great leap forward of the universe, the force of Tomorrow ever present.
A last kingdom where we are now walking »

Source : Heddy Maalem - June 2003

Heddy Maalem is sometimes rather withdrawn, a man of silence.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

Author, filmmaker and video artist Charles Picq (1952-2012) entered working life in the 70s through theatre and photography. A- fter resuming his studies (Maîtrise de Linguistique - Lyon ii, Maîtrise des sciences et Techniques de la Communication - grenoble iii), he then focused on video, first in the field of fine arts at the espace Lyonnais d'art Contemporain (ELAC) and with the group « Frigo », and then in dance.
   On creation of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon in 1980, he was asked to undertake a video documentation project that he has continued ever since. During the ‘80s, a decade marked in France by the explosion of contemporary dance and the development of video, he met numerous artists such as andy Degroat, Dominique Bagouet, Carolyn Carlson, régine Chopinot, susanne Linke, Joëlle Bouvier and regis Obadia, Michel Kelemenis. He worked in the creative field with installations and on-stage video, as well as in television with recorded shows, entertainment and documentaries.

His work with Dominique Bagouet (80-90) was a unique encounter. He documents his creativity, assisting with Le Crawl de Lucien and co-directing with his films Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux and 10 anges. in the 90s he became director of video development for the Maison de la Danse and worked, with the support of guy Darmet and his team, in the growing space of theatre video through several initiatives:
       - He founded a video library of dance films with free public access. This was a first for France. Continuing the video documentation of theatre performances, he organised their management and storage.
       - He promoted the creation of a video-bar and projection room, both dedicated to welcoming school pupils.
       - He started «présentations de saisons» in pictures.
       - He oversaw the DVD publication of Le tour du monde en 80 danses, a pocket video library produced by the Maison de la Danse for the educational sector.

       - He launched the series “scènes d'écran” for television and online. He undertook the video library's digital conversion and created Numeridanse.

His main documentaries are: enchaînement, Planète Bagouet, Montpellier le saut de l'ange, Carolyn Carlson, a woman of many faces, grand ecart, Mama africa, C'est pas facile, Lyon, le pas de deux d'une ville, Le Défilé, Un rêve de cirque.

He has also produced theatre films: Song, Vu d'ici (Carolyn Carlson), Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux, 10 anges, Necesito and So schnell, (Dominique Bagouet), Im bade wannen, Flut and Wandelung (Susanne Linke), Le Cabaret Latin (Karine Saporta), La danse du temps (Régine Chopinot), Nuit Blanche (Abou Lagraa), Le Témoin (Claude Brumachon), Corps est graphique (Käfig), Seule et WMD (Françoise et Dominique Dupuy), La Veillée des abysses (James Thiérrée), Agwa (Mourad Merzouki), Fuenteovejuna (Antonio Gades), Blue Lady revistied (Carolyn Carlson).

Source: Maison de la Danse de Lyon