“Bribes” is the first part of a trilogy about memory which consists of “Back Up”, “Anamnèse acte I” and “Anamnèse acte II”. Written memory, as a process of inventory, recuperation or evacuation. Associative memory, with the dreamlike installation “Mots d'A” (Words of A), which refers to the hinterworld of areas of strategic simulation: sex and war. A sound stratification of the words that come before…moving on to the act itself: penetration, surge, conquest. The basis of “Anamnèse” is an interplay of correspondence, exploration, mirroring and depth between a film and a dancer present on stage. The undercurrent is the theme of memory as each person deals with it. An interplay which brings up issues of identification, turmoil…For me it brings together the need to re-examine, in association with the dancers, the matter of performance as the desire for metamorphosis, curiosity and extrapolation.

In “Anamnèse”, the performer is invited to appropriate and embody the memory and the imagination of another dancer, unknown to the performer. This memory is transmitted by a third person, the choreographer, and so subjective. It could be said that the latter is, in fact, the first performer in a set of successive generations. This notion of generation, strongly linked to that of the memory, operates at all levels of the composition of “Anamnèse”: through the building up of the soundtrack created by superimposition, through the permeability of the spaces, through the play of reflected light (one source, many generations), through the dismantling and dividing up of the films in space, through the repetition of the solos…

Haïm Adri

Haïm Adri was originally a self-taught plastic artist, lover of photographic images and video, volumes and free jazz. His encounter with theatre and discovery of physical involvement, of body and voice as the stuff of artworks even, led him to France to meet Jacques Lecoq, who explores drama through visual forms of grotesque mask work and approaching objects as performing partners.

Through intellectual and artistic encounters, he gradually embarked upon a performing career which willingly crossed the formal boundaries of dance and theatre: with Mercèdes C. Aguirre, Michel Laubu and his Turak Théâtre d'Objet, Anne-Marie Pascoli, Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil, Olivia Grandville... This provided a training by immersion in complementary experiences, some of which – like the encounter with traditional and radical forms of Kathakali, Balinese theatre and Peking Opera while he was with the Théâtre du Soleil – are echoed strongly in his work. Since 1996, Haïm Adri has developed a specific way of working with various objects, such as the stick, as part of his research into emotional and physical states with dancers, whether in the studio or in his teaching. In parallel with this career, he has continued his training and personal research at the frontiers of technique and the artistic act: treating stage lighting as material and architecture (with the studio and video director, Luc Lauga).

Finally, the discovery of improvisation as a singular means of representation, and as a ground where musicians and modern dancers might share their working methods, brought him into contact with Steve Paxton, Lisa Nelson, Simone Forti, Julyen Hamilton and instant choreographic composition, an area of fundamental research into the composition process..

In 1998 he founded the Compagnie Sisyphe Heureux, a research and creation environment within which multidisciplinary artistic collaborations develop, and the specific and complementary views of choreographic artists, musicians and image and sound technicians meet. A project of utopian association which nourishes his career as an artist.

Further information

sisypheheureux.org

Updating : November 2010

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.).