When Dominique Brun set about recreating extracts from the “Rite of Spring” for the film by Jan Kounen, “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky”, in 2008, more than two hundred versions of the “Rite” existed, since its creation in 1913. However, the original choreography by Nijinsky has disappeared. Only Stravinsky's music remains to remind us of the original work and has become symbolic of it. “Sacre # 197” by Dominique Brun is made up of six sacral dances based on drawings by Valentine Gross-Hugo, who had seen Nijinsky dance. Each dancer, by engaging with these drawings, will create their own unique dance. Stravinsky's music, reduced to the exploration of its instrumental registers, will be composed by Juan Pablo Carreño, and sung by a mezzo-soprano. If until now the music of the “Rite” has inspired the dance, it is now about letting the dance have an effect on the music and allowing it to be rediscovered.

Source: CND website

Press quotes

“Curiously, it wasn't my intention to make another “Rite”, instead the idea was to make a work which, in its creation, fitted into my approach to the archives which I used for the film “Chanel et Stravinsky” by Jan Kounen. I wanted to break down the fantasies of authenticity prevalent in the discourse of dance whenever a piece is recreated. (…) It is very rare to be able to make a claim to authenticity. You can only talk about the interpretation of a text and there is always a degree of betrayal. My purpose here was rather the idea of ​​reconstitution through creation: I created fiction from materials that you would call the sources, which are therefore connected to the reality of the original production.”

(D.Brun for La Terrasse Newspaper)

Updating: May 2013

Dancer and choreographer, Dominique Brun has also been a dance examiner since 1995. She is the co-founder of the La Salamandre dance company and the Quatuor Albrecht Knust. She has worked with the latter on the re-creation of dances from the historical repertoire based on scores created using the Laban system. In 2003, she continued this work with the Ligne de Sorcière association. She is the author of the DVD “Le Faune – un film ou la fabrique de l'archive” (2007). In 2008, she recreated “L'Après-midi d'un faune” (The Afternoon of a faun) for Olivier Dubois's show “Faune(s)”.

Updated: May 2013

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.).