Retour en Avant / Past Forward Biennale de la Danse Lyon - France

Debussy et les gospels, les chants africainset la liturgie juive… De l’art syncrétiquede George Gershwin à l’art du mélange deMontalvo-Hervieu, il n’y aura dès lors qu’unpas ; pas de côté hors de toute théorie normativede l’art, pas de côté vers la multiplicationdes possibles, vers ce qui augmente lesentiment de la vie.Enfin George Gershwin croyait aux vertusd’un art léger mais profond, virtuose maisinterrogatif, lumineux mais complexe.Dès le début de sa carrière, il évoquait lamission de l’art populaire : il contribua auxpremiers enregistrements sur bande, auxpremières émissions radiophoniques… JoséMontalvo et Dominique Hervieu puiserontaux sources de l’entertainment américain– comédies musicales et cinéma hollywoodiendes années 30 –, dans une translationconstante entre arts majeur et mineur, entreculture savante et traditions, une réinventionpermanente des hiérarchies convenuesdes registres et des discours. Pour rendresensible cette porosité des registres dans ladanse et dans la musique, la bande-son duspectacle alternera les songs et la « musiquesérieuse » du compositeur, faisant la partbelle aux chants live, au slam, aux claquettes,ou autres percussions des Shim Shamdu Savoy. Multiples clins d’œil à ces annéesfolles, donc, pour un show de musique etde danse que rien ne devra interrompre…Il y a presque un siècle, Gershwin l’avaitdéjà compris : il est certains spectacles quimettent l’imaginaire au travail, et nousouvrent au rêve d’un monde souhaitable :car ils façonnent en nous une mobilité de laperception, une intelligente bienveillancedu regard.Vincent RafisComment le passé peut-il dessiner le futur ?Il faut parfois aller très en arrière pour mieux bondiren avant. Dans notre réflexion nous essayons d’éviterdeux voies qui nous paraissent sans issue. Celle d’unpassé sans avenir et d’un avenir sans passé. D’un côté,le refuge dans l’académisme, la répétition morne etmonotone du passé, de l’autre l’amnésie, la table rase,l’idée selon laquelle chaque nouvelle oeuvre rendraitvieillottes, périmées les œuvres qui la précèdent,comme chez la jeune Madame de Cambremer, dansA la recherche du temps perdu, pour qui après Wagner,Chopin n’est plus de la musique ; après Monet, Monetn’est plus de la peinture. Nous sommes persuadés quedans les grandes œuvres, il y a quelque chose d’éternel,d’immuable, qui est susceptible d’échapper autemps et qui vivifie, revivifie, questionne notre temps.Dans nos œuvres, nous nous sentons dépositaires decultures, de traditions, d’histoires de la danse magnifiquessur lesquelles notre imaginaire peut s’appuyer,rebondir, s’envoler. L’alliance de la mémoire et del’invention nous permet d’éviter les dogmatismes, lespréjugés, les pièges de notre époque en nous ouvrantdes espaces de liberté.Le retour sur les œuvres du passé active notre présentet esquisse ainsi d’inattendus pas en avant.José Montalvo et Dominique HervieuInfos +Première MondialeCoproduction Biennale1 représentation jeune publicwww.montalvo-hervieu.comJosé Montalvo andDominique HervieuIn 1981, choreographer José Montalvo metdancer Dominique Hervieu. He started to createshort playful pieces – sorts of choreographicaphorisms – of which she was the main performer.Together they developed a particulargestural language – fluid, rapid, precise – thatlent their productions a singular style. From1986-1988, Montalvo’s works won severalawards in international choreographic competitions,all courtesy of Hervieu’s performances.Thus began an artistic adventure and a profoundlyempathetic rapport, which in 1988 gaverise to Compagnie Montalvo-Hervieu. In 1993,their first joint work Double trouble, comparedtechnological images of the dancers’ bodies withtheir physical presence. The pair embarked onthe creation of a set of works which, thoughself-contained, could one day be considered intheir totality, like a large baroque mural. Paradis(1997) and Le jardin io io ito ito (1999) attractedplaudits the world over for the originality oftheir approach, and they received many artisticawards. In 1999, Montalvo and Hervieu createdfor the danseurs étoiles of Opéra National deParis and for the opening ceremony of the 53rdCannes Film Festival. In parallel to their corechoreographic output, in 1989 they began tocreate in situ events. In June 1998, they wereappointed directors of the national choreographiccentre (CCN) of Créteil and Val-de-Marne. In June 2000, Montalvo and Hervieuwere respectively named director of dance anddirector of children’s and outreach activities atThéâtre National de Chaillot. They were alsoawarded the distinction of Chevalier des Artset des Lettres. From 2002 onwards, DominiqueHervieu began to write the company’s showstogether with José Montalvo. In May 2004, theychoreographed and directed Jean-Philippe Rameau’sopera Les Paladins, conducted by WilliamChristie. In November 2004, they devised a“choreographic journey” at the Louvre Museum.In January 2005, they presented On Danƒeand created a variation on this piece for youngaudiences, titled La Bossa Fataka De Rameau. In2006, Hervieu created a set of interactive, educationalDVDs about cultural diversity. In June2008, the Ministry of Cultuure appointed thepair as directors of Théâtre National de Chaillot,which has become a venue wholly dedicated tochoreographic art.Gershwin / premiering at theBiennale“What luck to be twenty in the Twenties in NewYork!”, exclaimed Ernest Hemingway, a greatadmirer of George Gershwin. Those were indeedthe years when the new genius of Americanmusic burst on the scene. New York, a city thatsymbolises American urbanism, inspired the birthof George Gershwin’s urban art. The ferment ofmodernisation, industrialisation and speed gavehis music its pulse. His œuvre was profoundlyinfluenced by the city’s incessant transformations,particularly the tower blocks that pushedNew York’s skies ever higher – in, he said, a rushof “emotion and meaning”. Montalvo-Hervieu’sapprenticeship with Gershwin has yielded adialogue between the virtuoso artist, who gaveAmerica its tempo and beguiled the countrywith his melodies, and this new work, whichembraces 21st-century rhythms and aesthetics.The choreographers will pay tribute to the freespirited,cultivated Gershwin, the connoisseur ofEurope’s leading avant-gardist movements whoabsorbed, transformed and “Gershwinised”everything he heard. His oeuvre borrowed frommyriad styles, craftily tweaking the repertoire,remixing, collaging and plugging as he weaved adense fabric of references – jazz, arias, Debussy,gospels, African chants, Jewish liturgy… FromGeorge Gershwin’s syncretic art to Montalvo-Hervieu’s art of the blend, there was but a singlestep; a side step, away from normative theoriesof art and towards multiplied possibilities,towards all that is life-affirming. Lastly, GeorgeGershwin believed in the virtues of art that islight yet profound, virtuosic yet questioning, luminousyet complex. From the start of his career,he spoke of his mission to make popular art: hecontributed to the first tape recordings and thefirst radio broadcasts… Here, José Montalvo andDominique Hervieu tap the sources of Americanentertainment – the musicals and Hollywoodmovies on the ’30s – shuttling constantlybetween the major and minor arts, betweenscholarly culture and traditions, in a continuousreinvention of the conventional hierarchies ofregisters and discourses. To conjure the porosityof the dance and music registers, the show’ssoundtrack alternates the composer’s songs withhis “serious” music – with pride of place goingto live singing, slamming, tap dancing and otherpercussive sounds such as those of the Shim-Sham, the warm-up dance at the Savoy.The show brims with jaunty references to America’sAnnées Folles, a feast of music and dancethat nothing must interrupt. Almost a centuryago, Gershwin had already understood: thereare shows that set the imagination racing andbeckon us into the dream of a world to wish for,for they fashion in us a mobile perceptivenessand a benevolent, intelligent eye.Vincent RafisHow can the past shape the future?Sometimes you need to take a long step back to get abetter jump. In our thinking, we try to avoid two pathswhich we feel are dead ends: the past with no future,and the future without a past. On one hand, takingrefuge in academicism, in the dreary and monotonousrepetition of the past; on the other, amnesia andtabula rasa, the idea that each new work rendersold-fashioned and outdated those that preceded it –as epitomised by young Madame de Cambremer inProust’s In Search of Lost Time, who opined that Chopincould not be called music, once you’d heard Wagner;and that Poussin wasn’t painting, once you’d seenMonet. We are convinced that great works containsomething eternal and unchanging that tends to eludetime and which invigorates, reinvigorates, and asksquestions of our era. In our works, we feel we are thecustodians of magnificent dance cultures, traditionsand histories, which our imaginations can draw onand bounce off; which give them wings. Combiningmemory and inventiveness helps us to avoid thedogmatism, prejudice and pitfalls of our age, and toopen up spaces of freedom. Returning to the worksof the past activates our present, and thus outlinesunexpected steps forward.José Montalvo and Dominique HervieuExtra info: World PremiereCo-produced by the Biennale1 young people’s matinéewww.montalvo-hervieu.com13