“- You’re not afraid of the white canvas?

- The canvas isn’t white! It’s black, black with all the history of painting and with what I myself have done. It thus needs to be whitened and not blackened. That is, a first touch of red on the apparently white canvas: the red starts by fading, then it whitens, frees the canvas from all the past blacknesses that cover it. But, immediately, it feels alone, it requests, asks, begs, demands a green colour to dance with it [ ... ... ] ”

GF - 1970, ballet Hymnen 

“But you know, my dear Gérard Fromanger, red isn’t the only colour in life!”, Karlheinz Stockhausen wrote to me a few months ago. How right he is! Taking into account this common sense remark and as is my wont in my paintings, for Hymnen I wanted to give each of the colours in the spectrum a chance (the warm ones: red, orange, yellow, and the cold ones: blue, green, purple, not to forget black and white).

In Hymnen, Stockhausen deconstructs, crushes, elongates, reduces, mixes all noises and sounds (national anthems, birds’ songs, machines, breaths, human voices, etc.) to create an immense music.

Lia Rodrigues, Didier Deschamps and myself have imagined an ensemble SONS MOUVEMENTS COULEURS (sounds movements colours), which proposes a contemporary reading and listening of this music that never ages.

Gérard Fromanger - May 2007

This invitation is a challenge in that it provokes the meeting of artists hailing from very different realities and universes: Gérard Fromanger, Didier Deschamps and the dancers from the Ballet de Lorraine, myself and the dancers from my company in Brazil.

We propose to explore a common theme: Stockhausen’s music, Hymnen, an emblematic musical work of the 1960s, which has lost none of its power. This music creates a world of sound, a movement in space. And even its author calls it “stage music”, compares it to a “figurative musical painting”. Stockhausen talks of transmutation, integration, fusion, composition of a perception space. These words could be the key to this show: the creation of a territory that belongs to all, made up of a multiplicity of bodies, gazes and colours.

Lia Rodrigues

In 1970, Jean-Albert Cartier, then the director of the Ballet Théâtre Contemporain in Amiens, brought together around Michel Descombey a collective of 5 choreographers to create a show around Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Hymnen, with the collaboration of Gérard Fromanger for the scenography, settings and costumes.

This work resonated powerfully with the tensions and utopias of the time and, particularly, with the events of May 68, by the very content of the musical score, the settings and the costumes, and by the unique organisation of a collective choreographic approach.

Thirty-five years later, the world has changed, but the issues of national, ethnic and religious identities are still present and sharply felt, strengthened by the proliferation of new migrations, inequalities and miseries. By inviting Gérard Fromanger and Lia Rodrigues to renew this adventure with me, the aim is not to illustrate music or to adhere to current political events. However, the noises, images, injunctions and challenges of the world form the framework of our approach.

Didier Deschamp

Didier Deschamps is a French dancer, choreographer and dance teacher born in 1954 in Lyon. Director of the Centre Chorégraphique National – Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy until July 2011, he then assumed his current position as director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot.

Trained as a dancer in Lyon, notably by Michel Hallet Eghayan, and in Paris at the Centre International de Danse, he then studied in New York in Merce Cunningham’s studio. Didier Deschamps was first an interpreter in national and international companies, particularly in Régine Chopinot’s company and in the Opéra de Lyon ballet, and then as from 1972 in the USA, in the Hawaii Dance Theatre (José Limón and Doris Humphrey Company).

Contributing to the development of the New French Dance, he set up his own company and became a choreographer, particularly for Régine Chopinot, the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse (CNSMD) in Lyon, and for companies resident in Copenhagen and London.

Alongside this, Didier Deschamps started to teach dance, working in very many companies such as Régine Chopinot’s in the Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, and then overseas, before being named in 1983 study director of the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, then directed by Viola Farber. From 1984 to 1990, for a period of 6 years, he was director of the department of choreographic studies for the CNSMD in Lyon.

In 1990, he joined the government administration, working first in the dance inspectorate. He was then appointed General Inspector of Dance by Jack Lang in 1992, Delegate for Dance by Philippe Douste-Blazy in 1995, and, finally, Dance Consultant alongside Dominique Wallon, then director for Music, Dance, Theatre and Shows (DMDTS) in 1998. 

On July 1st, 2000 he was named director of the Centre Chorégraphique National – Ballet de Lorraine, succeeding Pierre Lacotte who had directed the Centre since 1991. He was also appointed Officer in the Ordre national du Mérite, and Commander in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

In July 2011, he was appointed director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot, and reappointed for a period of three years as from July 1st, 2016. At the same time the theatre took on the new name of Chaillot - Theatre National de la Danse.

Source: Théâtre national de Chaillot

Since acquiring the CCN title in 1999, the Centre Chorégraphique National - Ballet de Lorraine has dedicated itself to supporting contemporary choreographic creation. As of July 2011 the organization is under the general and artistic direction of Petter Jacobsson.
The CCN – Ballet de Lorraine and its company of 26 dancers is one of the most important companies working in Europe, performing contemporary creations while retaining and programming a rich and extensive repertory, spanning our modern history, made up of works by some of our generations most highly regarded choreographers.
The CCN functions as an art center and venue for multiple possibilities in the fields of research, experimentation and artistic creation. It is a platform open to many different disciplines, a space where the many visions of dance of today may meet. 

More information : http://ballet-de-lorraine.eu