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

La question : « Quelles possibilités d’être ensemblela danse invente-t-elle ? » est une decelles qui conduisent mon travail de créationet de recherche depuis plusieurs années.C’est elle qui m’a conduit à rencontrer AnnaHalprin, femme extraordinaire, chorégraphenovatrice dont le travail offre des réponsesd’une humanité incandescente à cetteinterrogation.Elle également qui est le moteur du projetdont il est question ici, et qui mène mondésir de travailler plus particulièrement àcette pièce de 1965, qui dynamitait en sontemps les codes en vigueur dans la danseet sa représentation : parades & changes.Quels peuvent être les effets produits parla remise en jeu des multiples scénariosde cette pièce, dans un temps et des lieuxautres, par des acteurs d’aujourd’hui enprise directe avec les questions qui agitentle champ contemporain ? Comment créerles conditions d’un échange fructueux entreAnna Halprin et une nouvelle générationde danseurs et de chorégraphes ? Autantd’enjeux qui sont au cœur du projet parades& changes, replays.Anne CollodAnne CollodDiplômée en biologie et en aménagementdes espaces naturels, elle choisit de seformer à la danse contemporaine auprèsde Michel Hallet Eghayan à Lyon et débuteun parcours d’interprète auprès de PierreDeloche, Philippe Decouflé, StéphanieAubin, La Camionetta. Elle co-fonde avecDominique Brun, Simon Hecquet et ChristopheWavelet, le Quatuor Albrecht Knust(1993-2001), dédié à la re-création d’œuvreschorégraphies du début du XXè siècle (DorisHumphrey, Kurt Joos, Yvonne Rainer, SteveRainer..). En 2002, elle crée l’associationEéfro’sProject qui lui permet de rencontrerAnna Halprin. Elle travaille également avecBoris Charmatz, Laurent Pichaud, CécileProust. En 2005, elle fonde l’Association… & alters.Info +Coproduction BiennaleRecréation mondialewww.annahalprin.orgAnna HalprinBorn in 1920, Anna Halprin has profoundlyinfluenced and renewed dance, music and thevisual arts in the past 40 years. In the early ’50s,while a choreographer and a soloist with DorisHumphrey, she left New York and settled on thewest coast of the United States, thus startingone of the 20th century’s most radical and fertileartistic adventures, whose effects continue toinform many fields of art. Her summer workshopswere the meeting-place for artists such asYvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Simone Forti andRobert Morris, who in particular practised thefamous “tasks”, a novel concept that introducedeveryday gestures into the realm of dance anddecisively influenced American post-moderndance. Nourished by the approaches of MoshéFeldenkrais and of Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls,by Bauhaus theories, and by the humanist andpragmatic philosophy of John Dewey, AnnaHalprin has unstintingly explored, developed andencouraged the creative process, especially in itscollective form. She tirelessly challenges ways ofthinking and acting, and aesthetic and politicalnorms and boundaries, using scores, collectivecreation, improvisation and experimentationin natural surroundings, her involvement in1960s protest movements, and long-term workwith Aids and cancer patients. Halprin, whofounded the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshopin 1955, initiated fruitful collaborationswith artists from all disciplines: many dancersand choreographers, of course, but also withLawrence Halprin (her husband, an architectand landscapist), with musicians and composers(La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Luciano Berio…),and poets (James Broughton, among others), aswell as painters and sculptors. She has createdmany pieces including Birds of America (1960),Four-Legged Stool (1962), Apartment 6 (1965),Myths (1967-68), and Ceremony of Us (1969).From 1971 onwards, her fight against cancerprompted her to radically alter her relationshipwith art – she dedicated her own art to life, andused her creative processes to serve the seriouslyill. This yielded Circle the Earth (1986-1991), ThePlanetary Dance (1987), Carry Me Home (1990)and Intensive Care (2000), among others. Nowaged 88, she is still dancing, creating and teaching.Her latest piece, Seniors Rocking, features50 people aged over 80.parades & changes, replays /recreated in 2008A recreation initiated by Anne Collod in collaborationwith Anna Halprin.1965: Parades & Changes, the first group piecedescribed as such by Anna Halprin, stemmedfrom the choreographer’s experiments with performanceand improvisation since the late ’40s.This major work centres on the mundane natureof everyday gestures, such as dressing and undressing.The dancers end up enveloping themselvesin a huge sheet of skin-coloured paper,which crumples and tears in silence. Its nuditycaused the show to be banned in the UnitedStates for 20 years. The mode of composition,co-devised with composer Morton Subotnick, isbased on a complex score that renders its structuretotally flexible, and enables cooperationbetween artists from several disciplines.2008: For parades & changes, replays, Anne Collodinitiated a collaboration with Anna Halprinand Morton Subotnick, the piece’s composerand co-creator in 1965. Also participating aretwo choreographers – Alain Buffard and BoazBarkan – who have been involved in Halprin’swork for many years and know her œuvre particularlywell, together with Boris Charmatz, VeraMantero and DD Dorvillier. They are all curiousto address Anna Halprin’s work and its topicality.The question “What possibilities for beingtogether does dance invent?” is one of thosethat have guided my creative and research workfor several years. It is this question that led meto meet Anna Halprin, an extraordinary womanand ground-breaking choreographer whosework supplies incandescently human answers.That question has also driven this project, and,more specifically, made me want to work on this1965 piece – parades & changes – which in itsday blew away the codes that governed danceand its representation.What effects can be produced by bringing thispiece’s multiple scenarios back into play, in adifferent time and places, by actors of todaywho are directly engaged with the questionsshaping the contemporary scene? How can theconditions for a fruitful exchange between AnnaHalprin and a new generation of dancers andchoreographers be created? All of these issueslie at the heart of parades & changes, replays.Anne CollodAnne CollodA graduate in biology and in the developmentof natural spaces, she chose to train incontemporary dance with Michel Hallet Eghayanin Lyon and then started performing withPierre Deloche, Philippe Decouflé, StéphanieAubin and La Camionetta. With DominiqueBrun, Simon Hecquet and Christophe Wavelet,she co-founded the Quatuor Albrecht Knust(1993-2001), dedicated to recreating choreographicworks from the early 20th century (by DorisHumphrey, Kurt Joos, Yvonne Rainer and SteveRainer, among others). In 2002, she created thenon-profit organisation Eéfro’s Project, throughwhich she met Anna Halprin. She also workswith Boris Charmatz, Laurent Pichaud and CécileProust. In 2005, she founded the non-profitorganisation …& alters.Extra info:Co-produced by the BiennaleRecreation world premierewww.annahalprin.org45