Choreography by Ambra Senatore
An extract remodelled by l’Atelier (Fontenay-aux-Roses), artistic manager Sylvie Horel, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2015) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
Intergenerational and multidisciplinary, l’Atelier, initiated in 2008 by the association l’Espérance de Fontenay-sous-Bois, brings together eight dancers practicing contemporary, classical and jazz dance, as well as music and theatre. Passionate about meeting people, the group, led by Sylvie Horel, has collaborated with a troupe of disabled actors and dancers. It confronts for the first time the question of the dance repertoire. For its rehearsals it uses the municipal hall of Fontenay-sous-Bois. 

The project
Ambra Senatore herself and the dancer Aline Braz da Silva have transmitted to the group a series of extracts from the show Passo in its version for five protagonists, entitled Passo Quintet. The choice of these sequences, which are interpreted by eight dancers, was guided by the desire to preserve the disorder and ambiguity between truth and fiction and between written and improvised score. The dramatic quality, the sense of the unexpected, and the mischievous sense of humour of the choreographer won over the members of l’Atelier, who first and foremost wish to retain the playful and surprise-loving spirit of Ambra Senatore.  

The choreographer
At the head of the Centre chorégraphique national de Nantes since 2016, the Italian artist Ambra Senatore made an appearance in France at the festival Repérages in Roubaix in 2005. She made a name for herself with Passo (2010), a parade of brown dolls in disarray, and A Posto (2011), a picnic thriller that comes to a sticky end. Her style, hovering between dance and theatre, plays on elliptical accounts borne aloft by an uneven dance. Also a researcher at Milan University, Ambra Senatore knows only too well how to turn apparently ordinary situations into bursts of outrageous frenzy. 

Choreographer and performer Ambra Senatore was born in Turin in 1976.

She trained with various choreographers, and moved on to work with Jean-Claude Gallotta, Giorgio Rossi, Raffaella Giordano, Georges Lavaudant (Théâtre de l’Odéon, Paris), Roberto Castello, and Antonio Tagliarini. 

Since 1998, parallel to her work as a performer, she began to create performances in collaboration with other authors, for instance Reminda-remoda, Un po’io un po’tu (1999), and  Silenzio (2002). 

Following her doctorate in contemporary dance (2004), she taught history of dance at the University of Milan and wrote a book on italian contemporary dance (published UTET, Torino, 2007).

From 2004 to 2009, Ambra Senatore pursued choreographic research on solos which she performed: EDA-solo, Merce, Informazioni Utili, Altro piccolo progetto domestico, Maglie.  It was now that her work began to be regularly broadcast in France, most notably at the Hivernales d’Avignon.

Thereafter she would create group pieces: Passo (2010), A Posto (2011) and John (2012).  In 2012, she founded the EDA Company based in Besançon.  In 2013, she choreographed and directed Nos amours bêtes, a show for young people based on the text by Fabrice Melquiot. Her latest creations are Aringa Rossa (2014), the solo In Piccolo (2014), and the series of performances entitled Petites Briques (2015).

Between dance, theatre, and visual art, her work explores the boundaries between fiction and reality; what belongs to the performance and what lies outside of it.  Ambra Senatore works on the dynamic of danced movement, enriched by elements of theatricality and everyday actions and gestures, by exploring the construction of a dramaturgy which looks at the action and presence of the body.

Since the 1st January 2016 Ambra Senatore has been the new director of the NCCN: The National Choreographic Centre of Nantes. 

Source : CCNN

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