Choreography by Christine Bastin

An extract remodelled by the group Aléa Citta (Parthenay), coordinator Ana Popovic, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2015) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group

Created in 1991 in Parthenay (Deux-Sèvres), Aléa Citta, made up of eight female amateur dancers with more than ten years’ commitment, is led by Ana Popovic, who has participated in a large number of training courses with Christine Bastin. She regularly sets up specific projects thought out with her group in mind. In 2013, the dancers worked on solos entitled Amoureuses to songs by Barbara. A year later, she proposed a research around the dance-music relationship in collaboration with a musician. The group uses the dance studio l’Archipel, a venue available for various associations and equipped with a dance floor and mat.

The project

The choice of Christine Bastin was the result of the workshops attended by Ana Popovic, who appreciates her teaching and her work, combining sensitivity, emotion and powerful dramaturgy in between movement and speech. The themes of Gueule de loup, originally created for five interpreters, such as life and death, female strength, impulse and restraint, fascinate the group that also questions the place of archaic, vital dance today, within the choreographic landscape. The chosen extract, Femmes, is a recreation based on Gueule de loup (1992) as well as Mariam (2006). It mainly focuses on female singularity and the immense range of nuances of their energy, from the most subtle to the most offensive. 

The choreographer

A figure of 1980s dance in France, Christine Bastin, with a background in law, philosophy and psychoanalysis, plunges into the roots of the living to extract a charged and carnal gesture, the reflection of the psychological conflicts that shake the human being. At the crossroads of dance, circus and theatre, she created her company Folia in 1986. She builds on scenarios that are often tense – Gueule de loup (1992) is inspired by the work of the Spanish writer Camilo José Cela – to deliver a physically sharpened statement spurred by a need to push beyond bodily and mental limits. Passionate about all representation spaces, indoor and outdoor alike, Christine Bastin is also a teacher and regularly transmits her repertoire. 

Christine Bastin’s dance is emblematic of the rich tones of the Nouvelle Danse Française of the 1980s. The works she composes are thus of great dramatic intensity, very attentive to the creation of characters committed to a very strong presence on stage. These works oscillate between a sophisticated grace and the burning of a raw archaism. Her great creative avidity is nurtured by multiple musical, pictorial and literary references. In 1992, Gueule de loup is thus an evocation of Spain, which draws from the writing of José Cela. She recreates a world in which material poverty rubs off on the roughness of souls: the very difficulty of expressing oneself in the world gives way to the expression of rustic and burning ardours. 

Source: CND

From live stage images to life in images, the  director and video artist Karim Zeriahen seems to have found the  shortest way. Since the beginning of the 90s, when he worked in close  relationship with choreographer Philippe Decouflé, he learned how to put  the art of stage in motion, contemporary dance most of the time. Karim  Zeriahen then starts a fruitful collaboration with Montpellier based  choreographer Mathilde Monnier. Stop, Videlilah, day of night, short  films adapted from her stage creations. Each time, Karim Zeriahen's   camera takes over the place with movement, the body language is not  frozen but magnified. Choreographer Herman Diephuis also joins this  gallery of dancing portraits. Documentaries on figures such like Albert  Maysles or Hubert de Givenchy and from Joe Dalessandro to Paul  Morrissey, he sets a signature, a camera always in action with  confidence.

Today the director goes further with a new  project and tracks the subtle movements of the body language beyond the  physical appearance. A collection of living portraits as unique pièces  reminding us of the master portraitists of renaissance. These living  natures consists in filming the subject in a certain amount of time,  almost still, with signs of respiration, eye blinks, as if it were  posing for a painting. They are then displayed on a flat screen with a  memory card. With this collection starting, Karim Zeriahen, with his  documentary and artist vision, interrogates himself about the virtual  world filled with images. By taking a pause, and his models with him, he  questions the way we look at things, the way we look at life.

Source: Philippe Noisette 

En savoir plus: www.karimzeriahen.com

Amateur Dance and Repertory is a companion program to amateur practice beyond the dance class and the technical learning phase. Intended for groups of amateur dancers, it opens a space of sharing for those who wish to deepen a practice and a knowledge of the dance in relation to its history.

Laurent Barré
Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
+33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr

Source: CN D

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme