From 2006 to 2008, Julie Desprairies and her team regularly worked at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres to learning about porcelain manufacturing gestures and shapes of bodies produced by the ceramists, those famous Sevres “biscuits”: small pastoral, mythological or theatrical scenes in white, unglazed porcelain that built the reputation of the Maison in the 18th century. The materials and tools it uses and the furniture and lighting of its workshops make the Manufacture de Sèvres a photogenic and potentially fictional setting. 

A hallucination or a choreographic drift? Has a delicate impregnation taken place over the centuries, an identification of the craftspeople with their objects? The ceramists at work seem to be moving biscuits, their gestures conjuring up the postures of their models.

Over the months, the workers at the Manufacture passed on to the dancers their precise and meticulous gestures for glazing, soaking, pelleting, retrimming… Arnold Pasquier danced with them before delivering a film on the patient appropriation of the movements of this exceptional place by the choreographer and her three dancers.

Les Trois Contents, the title of which is that of a biscuit sculptured by Etienne Maurice Falconet and taken from a popular play, is shown in full.

Source : Cie Desprairies

Following theatre and visual arts studies, she created her first production in 1998 in stone quarries of Pont-du-Gard. The site’s materials, usages and specificities are at the origin of her work. She asserts her contextual approach by applying it to a number of modern and contemporary architectures. Her choreographies are written and presented in the buildings, whose spatial, historical and human characteristics guide her dramaturgical, plastic and choreographic choices. She advocates applied dance (like “applied art”), where the body serves as a tool to measure the spaces built. Her aim is to give visibility to the movement of places.

 Her love of the gestures taken from the places she occupies has led to her interest in working gestures. She frequently associates with her creations the people she has met in these places (140 inhabitants and tradespeople from the Gratte-ciel in Villeurbanne, 192 amateurs and employees from the Opéra de Lyon). While her performances take place in public places, she develops adaptable projects, based on landscapes and agriculture or on the theme of the funfair.

 She has set up an “Atelier de création radiophonique”, a programme for the radio station France Culture and produced three films: Autour du parc at La Villeneuve in Grenoble with Louise Narboni, Cinq points de vue autorisés on Les Courtillières, with Vladimir Léon and L’Architecte de Saint-Gaudens, with Serge Bozon. She has mounted a number of projects overseas, inviting native dancers, and has written Manuel d’entraînement régulier du danseur urbain and Danser l’architecture (2017).

Source : Cie Despraires

Arnold Pasquier was born in Paris in 1968. After studying visual arts and cinema, he made tests in Super 8 and video, in which he developed a world of filmed newspapers and fictions. At the age of twenty, he approaches contemporary dance and collaborates with choreographers as documentarist and dancer. This experience marks the realization of a work where dance holds an important place.

From 1997 to 1999, he was received as a resident artist at the Fresnoy (Tourcoing, France) where he designed the installation "C'est ici que j'avais des baisers" (1997-1999) and produced about twenty short films, four radio design workshops For France Culture and dance performances capturing. In 1999, he presented the show "C'est merveilleux" in the Grande Nef du Fresnoy. He is the author of numerous films (fiction, documentary, video art), staged shows, scenographies, radio broadcasts. His work is articulated at the crossroads of these different disciplines. Winner of a residence Villa Médicis Hors les Murs (outside the wall) in Sao Paulo in 2004, he dances for Julie Desprairies in "La danse en accès accès", "Vue sur la mer" and "Là commence le ciel". He co-signs with her the video-dance installation "Les 3 contents", the result of the residence of the choreographer at the Manufacture de Sèvres (France).

Source : The Compagnie des prairies 's website

More information

compagniedesprairies.com