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

Comment le passé peut-il dessiner l’avenir ?La réalité est faite de la manifestation incessanted’innombrables choses surprenantes. Ce que nouscaptons du monde est en perpétuel mouvement,connaît des phases passagères et changeantes quicontribuent à la constitution de l’idée que nous nousfaisons de notre présent, de notre passé et de notrefutur. Mais comment arriver à exprimer et à nousreprésenter suffisamment la réalité de ce que nousvivons ? de ce qui a vécu ? de ce qui vivra ? Accepterl’idée du mouvement des choses, c’est admettre queles choses et leurs valeurs ne sont pas immuables,que les certitudes passées sont mises à mal par denouvelles découvertes. La rupture, l’idée neuve nefait pas disparaître l’ancien, elle l’envisage sous unnouveau rapport, avec de nouvelles questions. C’estune reprise qui n’est pas une reproduction. L’art necesse de travailler à la perception d’une réalité bouleversanteque la vie quotidienne nous dissimule et nousfait oublier. La peinture, la musique, la littérature, lethéâtre, le cinéma ne sont pas les échappatoires d’uneréalité pénible, c’est exactement l’inverse. Ce sontdes moyens puissants et dynamiques pour se ressaisird’une réalité en mouvement.Maguy MarinInfo +Coproduction BiennaleCompagnie invitée à la Biennale en 2002www.compagnie-maguy-marin.frMaguy MarinHer birthplace was Toulouse; more than a city,a place reached after a series of displacementscaused by political events in Spain. That iswhere she grew up, in France, in the early ’50s.Then came the desire to dance, confirmed by astring of studies – in Toulouse and Strasbourg,then at Mudra in Brussels – and encounters:with the student actors of Théâtre National deStrasbourg, with Maurice Béjart, Alfons Gorisand Fernand Schirren... A desire that swelledfurther with the Chandra group then at Bejart’sBallet du XXe siècle. Her creative urge began toblossom alongside Daniel Ambash; first prizes atthe Nyon and Bagnolet choreography competitionsin 1978 spurred her impetus. A team wasformed with Christiane Glik, Luna Bloomfield,Mychel Lecoq… and she embarked on an artisticjourney driven by insatiable wonder at whatmakes the world. 1981: a seminal encounterwith the work of Samuel Beckett. Thusopened a perception of being here, withoutdeciding to be, between birth and death– the moment filled with futile thingsto which we accord importance. Themoment in which we are compelledto find, over and over, the abilityto stay standing, to keep takingand sharing our life with others,while we wait to die (May B,Babel Babel).From 1980-1990, her explorationscontinued with acompany bolstered by CathyPolo, Françoise Leïck, UlisesAlvarez and many others.She tried working collectively,a consistently moving andunsettling venture, supportedby the trust and hospitality ofthe Maison de la Culture deCréteil; and then at the nationalchoreographic centre CCN ofCréteil / Val de Marne from 1990.In 1987 came a fresh encounter, with DenisMariotte; they began a collaboration that proveddecisive. Marin reached further than music,and viewpoints began to diverge. Distanciationwas employed (Cortex) and had multipleoffshoots (Waterzooï, Ram Dam, Pour ainsi direand Quoi qu’il en soit). No more illusions, butliving beings, right here. Vital music and livingtogether – no longer “me” but “us, in timeand place”. A nexus of presences in one space(Points de Fuite, Les applaudissements ne semangent pas). And so they work, come whatmay, at the CNN in Rillieux-la-Pape. Continuouslyexperimenting with our possibilities largeand small (Umwelt) to stay aware that escapingreality is a trifling commotion (Ha ! Ha !). Andin this ordered or disordered uproar, rhythmscohabit and form movement and life (Turba).Turba / 2007 creationTurba designates a multitude, a great population,confusion and tumult, diversity of the species,diversity of individuals, diversity in the partsthat compose an individual. It is the scene of afluctuation of shapes and movements ceaselesslychanging, where the ephemeral formsof its composing parts elaborate indiscerniblerhythms, a scene where individuals can singlytake position in a manner that is interstitial andfleeting, that is within the social code or withinthe code of nature. Turbulence.No individual is absolutely identical to another.Similarities and differences, compositions anddecompositions, give and take and affinities –perturbations forming swirling eddies, generatinga multiplicity of rhythms and lengths oftime that are the opposite of an exhausting andpolished cadence. The text by Lucretius whichserves as a foundation for Turba unceasinglyreminds us that Nature is an infinite sum ofelements that do not add together to form awhole; it is a force in the name of which thingsexist one by one, without the possibility of theunification that would give expression to it as atotality; it is an affirmation of the manifold andthe multifarious as sources of joy.How can the past shape the future?Reality is made up of the incessant manifestation ofcountless surprising things. What we capture of theworld is in perpetual movement; it goes through fleetingand changeable phases that help to form the ideawe have of our present, our past and our future. Buthow can we manage to adequately express and representto ourselves the reality of what we live in? ofwhat lived? of what will live? To accept the idea thatthings move is to concede that things and their valuesare not immutable; that past certainties are challengedby new discoveries. Clean breaks and new ideas donot erase what is old; they cause it to be considereddifferently, with new questions. It is a revival, not areproduction. Art constantly works on the perceptionof a staggering reality that everyday life hides from usand makes us forget. Painting, music, literature, theatreand film are not exits from a dreary reality. The preciseopposite is true: they are powerful and vibrant meansto grasp afresh a shifting reality.Maguy MarinExtra info:Co-produced by the BiennaleThe company performed at the 2002Biennalewww.compagnie-maguy-marin.fr73