"I decided to mix two different musical works, percussion scores, minimal abstract music : The anvil chorus, whose intense, pounding percussive beat, an essentially pure composition, attracted me immediately, and The so-called laws of nature, which is built around the idea of discovering how shapes are formed, how they change, deconstructing and reconstructing themselves again.

My response to these two pieces was to look for simple, basic movements to develop for the dancers’ bodies. The percussive movements of the musicians inspired me greatly, and I began working with the concept of gravity. The working process for this piece has been different from previous works. Here I am asking for minimal movement while maintaining expressiveness, a process of synthesis in which I wished to keep only that which is essential in the movement, to go with this primal, structured, tribal music.

This is also the first time I am working with live musicians onstage. As their presence and their posture are important onstage, I decided to place the percussion ensemble into a ceremonial position relative to the space and the stage itself."

Yuval Pick

Interview with Cathy Bouvard - Associate Director of Les Subsistances International laboratory of artistic creation - Lyon

The stage is like the story of a relationship.

Working with dependency, harmony, tension and contrast, Yuval Pick is working with the different principles governing an ensemble. A similar principle affects the structuring of sounds and movements, the emotional relationships between the dancers, as well as the visual composition of the stage.

But in order to attain this transversality, the dancing bodies have experienced lengthy rehearsal processes, substitutions and superpositions found within the musical score. Movement phrases become parts of games, fragmented and cumulative exchanges. But just when we might think the dance has been subverted by compositional mechanics, the dancers’ bodies pull away from the music, becoming their own composition. The movement is no longer the material fashioned by a choreographic structure, it is instead a vehicle for harmonies, contrasts and tensions. Intensive situations arising

from the improvisational process are developing, further evolving as each dancer’s attention is focused on the actions of the others as well as on the shared space. The choreography is stripped down, letting the bodies move inside their own musicality, the rhythm of their breathing, their empathy with the others. Abstract substitution becomes a human gesture, taking each other’s places, but not in the sense of substituting one tone for another, one movement for another, but in terms of maintaining the continuity of the others within the process.

By apparently moving away from the musical dramaturgy of David Lang, this dance nonetheless captures its drama, the deep movement driving its dynamic, in this Anvil Chorus evoking the solid power of the workers’ movements, pounding their anvils. It is a piece which weaves between the smooth and the rough, between violence and gentleness, control and chaos, in a constantly changing social space.

Text by Bojana Bauer based on an interview with Yuval Pick

Choreography : Yuval Pick

Interpretation : Zen Jefferson, Lazare Huet, Madoka Kobayashi, Anna Massoni, Antoine Roux-Briffaud

Music : David Lang
The Anvil Chorus & The so-called laws of nature (part 2 & 3)

Interpreted by : Ensemble TaCtuS & Ryan Wilson

Assistant : Nadia Perlov

Lights : Nicolas Boudier

Costumes : Magali Rizzo with Aude Bretagne

Advice to dramaturgy : Bojana Bauer

Sound : Raphaël Guénot

Production : Centre Chorégraphique National de Rillieux-la-Pape / Direction Yuval Pick

Coproduction : Les Subsistances - Lyon

Centre Chorégraphique National de Rillieux-la-Pape / Direction Yuval Pick is sponsored by Culture and Communication Ministry - DRAC Rhône-Alpes, Région Rhône-Alpes, city of Rillieux-la-Pape and Département du Rhône.

Appointed director of the Centre Chorégraphique de Rillieux-la-Pape in August 2011, Yuval Pick has had a long career as a choreographer, a dancer and a teacher.
He first trained at the Bat-Dor Dance School in Tel Aviv, then joined the Batsheva Dance Company in 1991. Four years later he left to begin working as an international guest artist with, among others, Tero Saarinen, Carolyn Carlson and Russel Maliphant.

In 1999 he joined the Opera Ballet of Lyon, and founded his own company, The Guests, in 2002.
Since then he has created a strong repertory of works marked by their elaborated, layered movement vocabulary, accompanied by commissioned scores by ranking composers.

In his work the relationships between individuals and group(s) are often highlighted and challenged.

He created Popular Music (2005), Strand Behind (2006) for the Agora Festival (IRCAM) and the National Conservatory of music and dance (CNSMD) in Lyon, /Paon/ (2008) for the Junior Ballet in Genève and 17 drops. In 2010, he created Score and then The Him for the Junior Ballet of the National Conservatory music and dance (CNSMD) in Paris and the trio PlayBach at the invitation of Carolyn Carlson.

In 2012, No play hero, with the music of David Lang and Folks for the Biennale of Danse in Lyon. Then, two creations in 2014, the duet loom with the music of Nico Muhly and Ply piece for five dancers with the american composer Ashley Fure.In 2015, he creates Apnée (corps vocal) for four dancers and six singers and then Are friends electric? for six dancers around the music of Kraftwerk.

In 2016, Yuval Pick was commissioned to create a work in a national historical building: Hydre in the the Royal Monastery of Brou.

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