We leap into this Planète Decouflé by François Roussillon as we would into a Mary Poppins picture, with the same trust in the ridiculous proposals handed to us to sample. Behind the unbridled image of an incredibly popular artist, our choreographer never ceases to keep the despair of the world at bay by tinkering with poetic prototypes that exhaust sadness. The entire film acts in this way, in echoed counterpoints to the image he has been stuck with since the opening and closing ceremonies of the Albertville Winter Olympics in 1992. 

Decouflé’s dance owes much to circus, which he studied, and to the teaching of Alwin Nikolaïs, from whom he takes the extension of the visual and choreographic composition to all the parameters of a show. Another vital element in his universe: Guillotel’s objects-costumes that divert the body from its usual mobility and make it the living medium of imaginary forms. These optical flesh and bone illusions blend marvellously into the creativity of the choreographer, the Professor Calculus of dance, who flushes out and depicts the fanciful relationships between the mechanical and the living.

Source : Fabienne Arvers

Dancer, choreographer, director and art director

As a child, I dreamt of becoming a comic book artist. Drawing is usually the start of my creative process. I just throw out ideas and sketch out pictures that pass through my head. My culture is comics, musicals, nightclub dancing, and also Oskar Schlemmer, the Bauhaus choreographer. Discovering photos of characters from his Triadisches Ballett was a revelation for me. I had always wanted to work with simple geometric shapes like cubes and triangles. I liked seeing how these lines and volumes behaved with each other. Alwin Nikolaïs taught me the importance of light and costume, and the confidence you need to mix everything together. Technically, it was Merce Cunningham who taught me the most about dance. I was taking video courses he was giving in New York. It was fascinating. That’s where I learned how to solve problems of distance and geometry, and the basic principles of optics and movement. Tex Avery inspired me a lot in thinking up gestures that are almost impossible to do. I’ve always kept something of that desire to create something strange, extreme or crazy in my movements. I’m looking for a dance style that’s off-balance, always on the verge of toppling over. With influences like the Marx Brothers, for example, and in particular Groucho Marx, I’ve developed a taste for naughty risk-taking, and comic repetition of mistakes.

Source : Philippe Découflé

More information : cie-dca.com

François Roussillon is a producer and director of musical programs. More than 1,000 hours of programs have been produced by the company he founded: FRA Productions. In 2009, the production company created its own video publishing label, FRA Musica. With more than 10,000 copies of DVDs and Blu-rays sold, his first title Dido and Aeneas is a great success acclaimed by critics.

Source : FRA