When creating L'Or ou le Cirque de Marie by Karine Saporta at the Manège de Reims, Marie-Hélène Rebois’s film traces a portrait of the choreographer and her work resolutely placed under the sign of excess and the baroque. Her Spanish and Russian roots are first touched on, before the choreographer and her interpreters speak in their own words.

The guiding principle of Alegria is its constant reconciliation between the contemporary aesthetics of a choreographer imbued with her origins, and the characteristics of flamenco. Indeed, several of her previous shows already drew inspiration from the corrida, the world of gypsies and of religious processions. In this case, this flamboyant universe is nurtured by a precise practice of flamenco which, in the words of Karine Saporta, can reintroduce us to the art of excess: for this show, the company’s dancers learnt the gestural technique at Seville, with Raphaël Amargo and Elena Gabezas-Gallego who also dance in the production. While the choreographer organises musicians and dancers in the splendid setting of the Manège, the mutual influences between contemporary and traditional dances are made apparent.

Source : Fabienne Arvers

Karine Saporta is a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and an Officier des Arts et des Lettres. She founded the Association des Centre Chorégraphiques Nationaux of which she is the first President. She was elected for the second time President of the Dance Commission and Vice-President of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD - Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) in 2004.

Right from the start, Karine Saporta defended at the highest level the artistic values responsible for her recognition and approval by the most eminent specialists as one of the leading figures of contemporary art today. 

She has been welcomed in all major dance venues, in France and abroad, with very many choreographies.

At the cutting edge of research into the body and the work of emotion in the dancer, she has revealed highly personal work methods.

Improvisation and technique but also reflection on dance themes and history form the foundations of Karine Saporta’s artistic and intellectual approach.

Her art is made up of baroque or dreamlike worlds, harbouring figures of flesh and wax, of giddiness of the senses and troubled hearts, of flamboyant pictorial images. 

From the Hispanic universe of the “Taureaux de Chimène” to the gothic images of “La princesse de Milan” or of the show “Le Spectre ou les Manèges du ciel”, not to mention the cinematographic form of certain productions such as “Le Bal du siècle” created at the Festival International du Film de Cannes in tribute to the centenary of cinema, or “Wild”, the choreographer shapes as much as a personal style the new forms of the performing arts.