Choreography by Maguy Marin
An extract remodelled by the group Désoblique (Oullins), artistic manager Blandine Martel Basile, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2015) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
Set up in 2010, the association Désoblique, led by Blandine Martel Basile and based in Oullins (Rhône), proposes a regular contemporary dance class. It brings together a small group of experienced female dancers, passionate about choreographic creation. Their participation in workshops is often combined with group outings to attend shows. For its work, the association uses the training centre Désoblique, installed in the Nouveaux Ateliers de la danse, Oullins. 

The project
May B, created in 1981, is one of the major works of Maguy Marin and of the history of dance. The two extracts chosen, situated at the start of the show, are linked to the dancers’ voices. The rhythmic complexity of the choreographic and vocal score, the dramatic quality of its gesture between movement and sound, call for an extreme attention to detail from its interpreters. Inspired by Samuel Beckett’s work, this show, the remodelling of which Maguy Marin has entrusted to Nadia Dumas, a former dancer with the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon, is performed without a setting but with costumes and make-up. Twelve female dancers participate in the show and also play the male roles. 

The choreographer
Of Spanish origin, born in Toulouse in 1951, Maguy Marin trained at Maurice Béjart’s Mudra school in Brussels. An interpreter with the Ballet du XXe siècle (Ballet of the 20th century) directed by Béjart, she founded a first company with Daniel Ambash, before winning an award at the Concours de Bagnolet in 1978 with Nieblas de Niño set to Spanish popular melodies. Based in the Maison des Arts de Créteil between 1980 and 1990, her company became a Centre chorégraphique national in 1985. Collaborating with the musician and composer Denis Mariotte since 1987, Maguy Marin carves out a highly personal language, delving into the gestures and sounds of the body, into dance and text, and live music, seeking out allies in the world of literature. Based since 1998 in Rillieux-la-Pape, in the suburbs of Lyon, she again became a free-lance company in 2011, when she decided to leave her position as director of the Centre chorégraphique. Since 1976 Maguy Marin has produced more than forty shows. 

Maguy Marin was born in Toulouse in 1951 and studied dance at the conservatory there before joining the Strasbourg Ballet. In 1970 she was accepted at Maurice Béjart’s school Mudra, where she stayed three years before becoming a soloist (for four seasons) with the Ballet of the 20th Century, under the direction of Maurice Béjart. A turning point would come at the end of this period seeing her shed all her previously held conceptions “allowing a multitude of creative choices, liberty and also constraints to emerge. Nothing was ever the same”. She also began questioning the body types idealized within the dance world, a subject that would become central in her work. “With Maurice Béjart the body was magnified. Youth, virtuosity, everything sparkled. And I had a problem with that. I asked myself what happened to all those other bodies, the ones that were infirm, misshapen or uncoordinated, but who managed to keep standing nonetheless.” 

Between 1980 and 1997 Maguy Marin was based at the Maison des arts in Créteil, with her company becoming an official Choreographic Centre in 1985. 

From 1998 until 2011 she directed the National Choreographic Centre in Rillieux-la-Pape. After which time the company once again became independent, setting up in Toulouse in order to continue their creative research. In 2015 the company moved again, this time to Sainte Foy-lès-Lyon, where they set up in an old carpentry factory. Their tenure there would allow them to continue to open up the immaterial space of that which is shared, something that obstinately seeks to make itself manifest while encouraging the unfolding of a new ambitious project: RAMDAM, AN ART CENTRE. It is a place of horizontal sharing, dedicated to hosting artists and audience members alike. It is also a place intent on facilitating an on-going exchange and continuous circulation between those conducting research, amateurs, students, spectators and volunteers; as well as creating bridges between different artistic practices, laboratories, places for public relations, education and reflection. 

- 1978: Grand Prix du Concours chorégraphique international de Bagnolet - 2003: Grand Prix de la danse du Syndicat de la critique for
Les applaudissements ne se mangent pas
- 2003: American Dance Festival Award 

- 2006: Special jury prize Syndicat de la critique for Umwelt
- 2008: Bessie Award for Umwelt presented at the Joyce Theater
- 2008: Grand Prix de la danse du Syndicat de la critique for Turba
- 2011: Prix Danza & Danza for “Best Contemporary Dance Piece » for Salves - 2016: Golden Lion, Venice Biennale 

More information : compagnie-maguy-marin.fr

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