Monday, May 26, 2008

10h30 du soir en été - M. Duras




Comment nommer ce temps qui s'ouvre devant Maria?
Cette exactitude dans l'espérance?
Ce renouveau de l'air respiré?
Cette incandescence, cet éclatement d'un amour enfin sans objet?




Thursday, May 22, 2008

Making contact



An extract from a performance titled "Hurry up and weight" from the Making Contact series, featuring Andrew Harwood, Jacob Lehrer, Judit Keri, David Corbet with musicians Rae Howell and Alies Sluiter. Videographer Dianne Reid. The music and dance are improvised and the dancers use contact improvisation as a performance form.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Emio Greco

Emio Greco revient sur ses débuts avec Rosella Hightower, ses années chez Jan Fabre, son expérience avec le japonais Saburo Teschigawara, et enfin son association avec le metteur en scène hollandais Pieter C. Scholten.

voir ce film: http://www.vodeo.tv/18-106-3325-emio-geco.html.PARTID=8567



Friday, May 16, 2008

16:18:29 - 22/03/2007


Μα οι επιθυμίες δεν μπορούν να είναι ρητές, Ε. ...
Όσο πιo έντονες είναι τόσο πιο λεπτές.
Το κενό δεν υπάρχει, γι'αυτό ακριβώς λειτουργεί.
Όπως ο Τρελός δεν ταξιδεύει, ο Τρελός είναι το ταξίδι.
Και σου λέει:
"αυτά που είναι ακόμα να είναι,
τα 'χουμε αφήσει ήδη πίσω..."



Monday, May 12, 2008

Wim Vandekeybus


English translation of excerpts from an

Interview with Wim Vandekeybus by Ruud Goossens

De Morgen 29/01/2005
(…)

“I was raised on a farm in the Kempen (note: a sandy region in the north of Belgium), my father was a vet. The atmosphere there had a very intense influence on me.”

‘All my dreams take place in the landscape of my youth’, you once said.
“When I dream about people they are very often placed in that period. I grew up there with Tist and Lena, two retired farmers who were constantly around. There also were cows, goats and horses, I found that all incredibly exiting. Every moment things could go wrong. The farm was right next to the Nete (note: river). When the dike broke, everything ran under water and we had to protect them with bags of sand and keep watch for nights. Often I also accompanied my father at night to assist with the deliveries. We would then arrive deep in the night at a dark farm where a dog would lie moaning at a chain. That atmosphere of uncertainty, of tension, of adventure, one never loses.
“When my mother sees Fernando, she always that as a child I had even more energy. I would always be busy with a hundred things at the same time. My mind works in an associative way: when I see something, it immediately makes me think of something else. Often I read four-five books at the same time. At home we weren’t really busy with culture. Often I would be horsing around outside, playing with knives and branches. When I was lying in bed at night, I would hear the earth tremble because the horses would be running through the meadows.”

Animals are often present in your performances, but apart from that there a very little allusions to your farmers’ roots.
“The farmers’ life is often also just very boring. On stage that is not interesting. What stayed from my youth is the energy, that state. It has to do with a way of looking at things. A child that lies in bed with fever, can be staring at the crack in the ceiling and see many things in it, leaves, or all kinds of shapes. As an adult you know what you see and because of that it immediately passes. As I child, I would lie in the grass with my friends and we would start talking about eternity. How could something be eternal? Later you just ‘accept’ that. When you lose the child in yourself, something dies. Not that I start to think in a childlike way when I make a performance. But it is important to find back part of that child.”

Would you have been able to make a performance with children before you became a father yourself?
“I think so. In fact you are already a father before you really become one. It is inside of you. When your child is born, it all comes out. Often you then also realize that you look a lot like your father. For my next performance, for which I will start from the myth of the killing of the infants, we brought together a lot of children with their young mothers and fathers. Then you see really see physically that they already have in them what they will later become.

“That is why I will make a leap in time in the performance. The stage will be the hereafter, while the projected film, will be about life on earth. The characters on stage will recognize themselves as a baby in the past – in the film – while they have never lived themselves. They died before they were born. Someone in a coma has everything inside but can not do anything anymore. There are there, but then also not. Do you know these stories about comatose patients? A child comes to visit and throws a ball ah the bed. Suddenly the hands grab the ball. In a shock, in a reflex. I think that our mind works in the same instinctive way. Everything what you have lived, is in your head. But you don’t know where to find it. During a dream suddenly everything is back.”

Do you often dream?
“Recently I have been sleeping better, but for a very long time I had sleeping disorders. I would sleep two hours and then lie awake. A lot depends on my body. I am 41 in the meantime, but during Blush I dance during the entire performance. I feel that I have to push my body to extremes. Then it is difficult to crawl into bed afterwards and to let all that go. On the other side: I also need that. If there is no physical tiredness, my mind keeps turning.”
“A lot of my performances grow in bed. I wake up in the morning with images in my head. The image of the frog that - in the Blush film – swims out of the mouth of Ina (Geerts, one of the actresses, RG), was also suddenly there. Afterwards a lot people told me: ‘ Ah that was a symbol for the prince’ or ‘that was the soul escaping from the body’. (laughs) I had never looked at it that way. I just woke up with that image and during the rehearsals we involved a frog specialist. He advised the Australian tree-frog because these animals are not poisonous. We then started: frog in the mouth, we did not think too much and filmed. That was very beautiful because the frog seemed to be warm in the mouth of Ina. Finally it swam out very calmly, very elegantly. But what it means. That doesn’t interest me.”


Why not?
“I don’t like adding a whole symbolism to it. In our culture a black cat means bad look, but it doesn’t even know itself that it is black. I don’t like that people ask me in an after-talk “What did you mean with that?” An image is strong just because it is an image. On stage you of course need a dramaturgy, a line, but if that line becomes too obvious, I rear. I hate performances in which you get a kind of moralistic lesson about the bad world.
“And of course I want to talk about the world. Sonic Boom was about the power of the media and radio. But we did not talk about the war in
Iraq or the genocide in Rwanda. On stage we created a medium that started to manipulate everybody, until they were bleeding. Theatre is strong when you limit it to the stage. Of course references to the outside world are necessary, but the reality on stage is something different. The more you’re conscious of that, the easier it gets to talk about the spirit of the times.
“That is why I want to get started with that story of the killing of the innocents. I think it is still very topical, but it already was topical 2000 and 5000 years ago. In fact it is about a meaningless murder that is committed out of fear of losing one’s power. I want to work around this ‘loss’, and around the people in power who did not have to justify themselves. Tone Brulin, who is
78 in the mean time, will perform in the piece. I look very much forward to that. Tone has lived many, many things, but he is still a little kid.”


Does Wim Vandekeybus not want to transmit any ‘message’ at all?
“Of course I want to transmit a message. I do not make performances to entertain people. If everybody leaves the theatre with a good feeling, I go home with a bad feeling. But I do not want to explain a message. If you like a rabbit, you do not have to cut it open to see what it looks like on the inside. All the energy that is in my projects in itself is already a message in this un-physical world.”

Is this world ‘un-physical’?
“Don’t you think so? We go to a gym and work out – all alone, on our own little mattress – until we sweat. On stage we grab each other, we push, we pull, we fight, we hurt each other. We let all the energy that we have inside of us, stream out. Hopefully the people, who are watching that, get a little jealous. When you hear that more and more people start to take tango lessons, there seems to be a need to hold each other, to escort each other.
“A look can also fascinate me a lot.
Peter Verhelst formulates it very beautifully in one of his texts: a boy looks at a girl, a girl lets herself fall and he begins to moves to catch her. From this one sentence the whole ‘falling scene’ for Sonic Boom grew: the dancers look at each other, they fall and catch each other with their bodies. By laying each other, without using their hands.”
(...)
“On stage indifference can be very beautiful. If I become angry at you on stage, it is not interesting that you also become angry at me. In a movement you have to create a shift, only then it becomes interesting.
“I don’t pretend to think of everything myself. I am the engine and the others have to react. But I notice that my fantasy is still working. If the ten of us are stuck, I can loosen it with an idea. Then we can continue. I like to work with people because they keep my fantasy ‘fresh’.”

Your dancers are more than performers. They also always have to fascinate and inspire you.
“Before I start to work with them on a performance, I want to observe them closely. I am very good at having people do something that they have never done before, but that they are very good at. When some years ago I was working with Jan Fabre, he would put very clear limits on me. He saw that I was very impulsive and decided to tie me up. (laughs) The limits were clear and then we could start working. I prefer to put people on a field where they have never been. Linda, one of the girls in Blush, danced for ten years, but she had never spoken. While she immediately gets all the attention when she does do it.”

Even when, technically, it is less strong?
“There are people who get annoyed, when a dancer does something with text. I believe that it often also gives something extra. I would like to make a feature film. Hopefully a lot of experienced actors will perform in it, but definitely also some of my own people who do not have any camera experience. Professional actors don’t get where we get. We set out for a different field where they do not come. Deep in the jungle.”
(...)

You are 41 in the mean time; that is a respectable age for a dancer. Do you have to take care of your health?
“I am better trained now than before. I used to be stronger though. I was the wild boy of the group. In La Mentira (from 1992, RG) I would run at full force, jump, open my arms in the air and then tumble down on the floor. In total I played 1200 or 1300 performances, with all additional the rehearsals. That is a lot. After a performance my body really troubles me. Nowadays I dance bare feet more often. That is much more pleasant for your body, because your shoes do not pinch. I have to think about that kind of things now. (...)
‘I am not afraid of age. When I see how Tone Brulin can still use his body, I think: ‘I will be OK’.”

It has to keep you busy. A cyclist who passed 35 also knows that the end is near.
“A cyclist can not go on. I become better. I mean that. It is not because I become older that I have to pull out. Now I still do the same as the others, at a certain moment that will not be possible anymore. But then I will get another importance on stage. It is very beautiful to see elderly people on stage. Titus Muizelaar and Joop Admiraal in Sonic Boom for example. They obtain the same intensity as the dancers with their voice. Fragility can also be very beautiful. Fragile dancers are often very beautiful.”
(...)
“I would like to make a dictionary of our ‘language’. I love dictionaries, I like to read them. It would be interesting to make an Ultima Vez dictionary, with our performances and our movements, and many cross references. Because our people teach workshops, the dance vocabulary of Ultima Vez has become much more precise. Maybe we should pour that into a very free, technical guide.”
(...)

Maybe you are political in that sense. Your performances are cacophonies that are difficult to interpret in Flanders, a region where the political thinking of one particular extreme-right leaning party runs rampant.
“My performances are often about fear. For many people fear is a great source of creative inspiration. But it can also go wrong of course. Fear can become very oppressive, as you see in Flanders. That is why they frighten people. For me it is a motive, after fear there is desire. That is a much stronger emotion than fear and it allows you to take risks. I want to embrace mortality. You know, if extreme-right is the prophet of fear, you can call me the prophet of desire.”

© De Morgen, 29/01/2005

site link: www.ultimavez.com

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Le Sacre du printemps


The Joffrey Ballet's recreation of the 1913 Nijinsky choreography of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du printemps.


If the work continues like this, Igor, the result will be something great. I know what Le Sacre du printemps will be when everything is as we both want it: new, and, for an ordinary viewer, a jolting impression and emotional experience. For some it will open new horizons flooded with different rays of sun. People will see new and different colours and different lines. All different, new and beautiful.
Nijinsky wrote to Stravinsky on January 25, 1913.



Thursday, May 8, 2008





Le metteur en scène Alain Platel se rappelle très bien la première fois qu’il a entendu, adolescent, « Les Vêpres » dans une église gantoise, par une journée estivale caniculaire. Les instruments baroques authentiques étaient constamment en violent désaccord. Il y vit peut-être alors un lien avec le déchirement de la musique tzigane. Quoi qu’il en soit, il vit en cette œuvre l’une des plus abouties du répertoire liturgique. Composé en 1610, le Vespro della Beata Vergine, puisque tel est le titre intégral des Vêpres, fut la carte de visite du compositeur Claudio Monteverdi. Il était alors à la recherche d’un nouvel employeur et voulait démontrer son éclectisme… en bref, qu’il ne rejetait pas l’ancien mais qu’il aspirait toutefois à tracer de nouvelles voies vers la nouveauté. Sa musique n’était plus seulement l’expression d’une religiosité collective mais faisait également place à l’expression individuelle. L’harmonie et la mélodie restaient fondamentales mais le contrepoint et la rythmique étaient porteurs d’une intense émotion. Pourtant, ce n’est pas une interprétation directe et sans détour des Vêpres que Platel propose avec vsprs. Il opte pour une voie plus aventureuse et est assisté, dans cette tâche, par Fabrizio Cassol, le directeur musical du projet. Cassol enrichit le projet de différentes cultures musicales en y introduisant son trio d’impro Aka Moon (batterie, saxophone et basse), deux musiciens tziganes (violon, contrebasse), un groupe de musique baroque composé de deux cornettistes, de deux trombones et d’une soprano. Cet ensemble bigarré se laisse inspirer par différents thèmes des Vêpres et en explore les facettes encore vierges.
Platel adopte une approche totalement différente par rapport à Monterverdi. Venant de spectacles dans lesquels de fortes personnalités étaient le miroir tant différent que vital de l’univers, il semble chercher un monde intérieur offrant la perspective d’une plus grande solidarité, même si ce n’est que le temps d’une représentation. La question reste, cependant, de savoir si cela apporte une quelconque rédemption. Dans ses œuvres précédentes, Platel a très souvent choisi la musique baroque qui confère toujours une dimension sublime. Il lui opposait des histoires d’identité et de diversité de notre monde. Ces spectacles traduisaient alors souvent une confrontation entre le ciel et l’enfer. Il semble aujourd’hui que Platel recherche davantage à établir un passage, un lien.




http://youtube.com/watch?v=YI4QNc5aVDw




The show is not the show,

But they that go.
Menagerie to me
My neighbor be.
Fair play-
Both went to see



Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.
Part One: Life



I am waiting for the man....à partir d'une chanson


filmings of Andy Warhol,1966, of the band in a rehearsal

I am waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington, 125
Feel sick & dirty, more dead than alive
I am waiting for my man

Hey, white boy, what you doin´ uptown?
Hey, white boy, you chasin´ our women around?
Oh pardon me sir, it is the furthest from my mind
I am just lookin´ for a dear, dear friend of mine
I am waiting for my man

Here he comes, he has all dressed in black
PR shoes & a big straw hat
He has never early, he has always late
1st thing you learn is you always have got to wait
I am waiting for my man

Up to a Brownstone, up three flights of stairs
Everybody´s pinned you, but nobody cares
He has got the works, gives you sweet taste
Ah then you´ve got to split because you got no time to waste
I am waiting for my man

Baby don´t you holler, darlin´ don´t you bawl & shout
I am feeling good, you know I am going to work it on out
I am feeling good, I am feeling oh so fine
Till tomorrow, but that is just some other time
I am waiting for my man

Album: The Velvet Underground & Nico (1966)




Edouard Lock used a new version of the song in his Amelia (2002)

Jan Fabre...carte blanche dans le Louvre



"Le plasticien choc anversois a été choisi pour établir un dialogue
entre artistes du passé et artiste vivant" ......(whatever that means)

Durant trois mois, ses têtes de hibou, un verre de terre géant ou des silhouettes composées d'os ou de punaises vont être confrontées aux oeuvres de Van Eyck, Rubens ou Rembrandt.La manifestation d'art contemporain annuelle "Contrepoint" est ainsi entre les mains du Flamand pour qui les écoles du Nord sont sa "tradition". Ces "artistes m'ont inspiré dans le passé", ajoute le natif d'Anvers, âgé de 50 ans, internationalement reconnu, qui a "découvert le body art et la performance" en admirant à Bruges des tableaux de primitifs flamands évoquant la flagellation du Christ.Une trentaine d'oeuvres - dessins, sculptures, installations souvent monumentales, vidéos - jalonnent les salles, dont cinq spécialement conçues pour "L'ange de la métamorphose", du nom de l'exposition.L'artiste, qui a conçu le parcours "comme une dramaturgie mentale", en s'inspirant des grands thèmes développés par Bosch, Breughel, Frans Hals, Pourbus ou Jordaens, que sont les Vanités, la mort, l'argent, le carnaval, la fête, etc, explique qu'il "a essayé ici d'en donner des interprétations nouvelles".


Sang, élytres et encre bleu

Ses oeuvres utilisent des matériaux les matériaux, récurrents dans son oeuvre, que sont le sang - le sien - les élytres de scarabées, les os ou l'encre bleue, et ses obsessions, la vie et la mort, la figure de l'artiste, le corps.
L'exposition démarre avec une sculpture inédite, représentant l'artiste lui-même, le nez collé contre une copie d'un tableau de van der Weyden. De son nez, le sang coule, une sorte de "purification" de l'artiste qui se dépouille ainsi de sa vanité, dit-il.
Le plasticien se représente aussi en entomologiste devant un microscope - tout en clous dorés - imitant son "bisaïeul" le naturaliste français Jean-Henri Fabre . Un agneau doré rappelle l'Agneau mystique des Van Eyck à Gand et son chapeau de fête le carnaval flamand.

"Les visiteurs seront-ils choqués? Je ne crois pas. Je crois au lien secret entre le spectateur et l'oeuvre d'art", conclut-il Jan Fabre dans un charmant sourire qui présente une table couverte de têtes de hiboux, messagers de la mort, évoque les +Vanités+ flamandes, ces natures mortes qui rappellent que la vie est fugace. Une forme couverte de scarabées, suspendue au plafond, fait, elle, écho au "boeuf écorché" de Rembrandt.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008






Patti Smith...la Fondation




2008




The American Broadcasting Company used to have a show (((back in the 70s))) called "Kids Are People Too" that had some surprising guests. Patti Smith appeared on it with Joe Brooks and sang his song "You Light Up My Life".



1970's

" En entrant, on peut voir trois petits dessins que j'ai faits à Paris en 1969. Le troisième, intitulé A Goat Talks to God appartient au Centre Pompidou. Il y a également deux autoportraits dont l'un avec un chapeau de paille au Chelsea Hotel, appartenant à Steven Sebring.
Plus loin sur le mur, est projeté Still Moving, un film en 16mm tourné avec Robert Mapplethorpe en 1978. Il a été improvisé dans son studio de Bond Street à New York...
à droite du film se trouve mon dessin de Robert et moi réalisé en 1969 à Coney Island; à gauche on peut voir Constellation I, un dessin que j'avais fait pour lui à Paris et qui appartient également au Centre Pompidou. J'y ai collé une lettre qu'il m'avait envoyée durant mon séjour à Paris en 1969. Les trois dessins suivants datent de la même année, à l'époque où j'habitais avec ma soeur Linda. Le dernier dessin sur ce mur, c'est un portrait que j'ai fait de Robert en 1978 ; il appartient au MOMA, New York........"

Une visite avec Patti Smith
à la Fondation Cartier, Paris 2008.




Tuesday, May 6, 2008






mon amour - christian rizzo

Il est toujours complexe de décrire quel est le désir qui anime une nouvelle aventure, plus particulièrement de quoi est fait ce désir... Mettre à jour une nouvelle pièce est toujours pour moi la tentative de répondre à cette question, le temps de création est ce révélateur. Il y a bien sûr des envies et des images comme prétexte, qui deviendront peut-être sous texte...

Ainsi, pour "mon amour", il y a l'envie de convier une équipe de danseurs au sein d'un espace qui comme eux, sera en mouvement. Sorte de ballet mécanique pour objets autonomes. J'ai l'image de sphères qui une à une entre en jeu et tente petit à petit de recréer un mouvement cosmique artificiel, une reconstitution du mouvement des planètes entre elles, mais au sol, regarder à terre pour y voir en miroir cette mini-galaxie de théâtre.
J'ai aussi l'image des danseurs, qui pris dans l'habituelle lenteur de mes pièces, tentent des accélérations, des lignes de fuites mouvementées, parfois esseulées, comme éjectés du groupe.
Je les rêve aujourd'hui dans des tenues mi-sportswear, mi-victoriennes. Certains portent des masques peut-être africains, peut-être océaniens, peut-être du carnaval de Nice...

La lumière crépusculaire les accompagne. Ils se passent entre eux des objets de verres aux formes organiques, ils acceptent le temps car ils savent qu'il est compté.
Et il y a une voix, chantante et éructante qui se glisse dans des compositions atmosphériques, elle cherche son chemin, elle est en promenade dans cette pièce paysage
La pièce entière pourrait être une chanson, où chaque élément convoqué écrit ses couplets et ses refrains. Le vide se rapprochant, la chorale peut alors commencer, mon amour.

Note d'intention de Cristian Rizzo - dernier jour de juillet 2006





Friday, May 2, 2008





Balanchine-Noureev-Forsythe

Les Quatre tempéraments - Raymonda (extraits) - Artifact Suite

BALLET DE L'OPÉRA, du 4 avril au 9 mai 2008, Opéra Bastille

Balanchine
Les Quatre tempéraments, créé en 1946 à New York, est à l'image des humeurs qui traversent les hommes. Les innombrables possibilités qu'offre la danse évoluent en séquences imprévisibles et fluides, épousant au plus près les variations de la musique de Paul Hindemith.

Noureev
Ce ballet - créé au Théâtre Mariinski en 1898 - se déroule dans un Moyen-Age imaginaire, avec héros partant à la croisade : dans la bataille, le chevalier Jean de Brienne devra sauver sa fiancée Raymonda des griffes des Sarrasins, conduits par le maure Abderram. La chorégraphie et la mise en scène de Rudolf Noureev, associés aux décors et costumes flamboyants de Nicholas Georgiadis, apportent à ce romanesque mélange d'exotisme et d'Histoire, une séduction tout orientale.

Forsythe

Dans ce ballet composé en 2004, William Forsythe met en scène sa réflexion personnelle sur la nature de l'histoire de la danse dans une pièce insolite d'une grande beauté formelle, constituée d'une série disloquée de fragments chorégraphiques. La construction fragmentée, l'alternance d'ordre et de désordre et la fascination créée par la musique de Bach font éprouver au spectateur un véritable vertige scénographique.


Même si le ballet n'est pas vraiment mon genre de danse préferé, je me suis bien amusé par ce spectacle et je pense que la mise-en-rapport de ces trois chorégraphes -surtout en ce qui concerne leurs styles chorégraphiques- était très intéressante.