Class at the CNDC

teacher Didier Deschamps

In the first semester of 1984, Viola Farber had recently left her job as director of the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers prematurely. While awaiting her replacement, experienced members of the company (Douglas Nielsen, and French members, Claire Verlet and Didier Deschamps) took charge of the everyday running of the establishment. As part of this, they devised works for the students.
On February 4th 1984, Didier Deschamps taught a public class at the Théâtre Municipal (Municipal Theatre), Angers, accompanied by pianist Dominique Lofficial. He brought to this Viola Farber's qualities of liveliness and rigour of involvement and bodily rhythm, as well as posture and projection in space. Didier Deschamps had no classical training, but he has a noticeable taste for the same great firmness in definition of movement as the widespread diffusion of Cunningham's technique and its derivatives has encouraged in France. The following year, Didier Deschamps was called to direct the embryonic dance department of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Lyon. Later, during a spell in the higher echelons of the Ministry of Culture, he would opt to direct a neo-classical ballet in Nancy. 

Source: Gérard Mayen

Didier Deschamps is a French dancer, choreographer and dance teacher born in 1954 in Lyon. Director of the Centre Chorégraphique National – Ballet de Lorraine in Nancy until July 2011, he then assumed his current position as director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot.

Trained as a dancer in Lyon, notably by Michel Hallet Eghayan, and in Paris at the Centre International de Danse, he then studied in New York in Merce Cunningham’s studio. Didier Deschamps was first an interpreter in national and international companies, particularly in Régine Chopinot’s company and in the Opéra de Lyon ballet, and then as from 1972 in the USA, in the Hawaii Dance Theatre (José Limón and Doris Humphrey Company).

Contributing to the development of the New French Dance, he set up his own company and became a choreographer, particularly for Régine Chopinot, the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse (CNSMD) in Lyon, and for companies resident in Copenhagen and London.

Alongside this, Didier Deschamps started to teach dance, working in very many companies such as Régine Chopinot’s in the Ménagerie de Verre, Paris, and then overseas, before being named in 1983 study director of the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, then directed by Viola Farber. From 1984 to 1990, for a period of 6 years, he was director of the department of choreographic studies for the CNSMD in Lyon.

In 1990, he joined the government administration, working first in the dance inspectorate. He was then appointed General Inspector of Dance by Jack Lang in 1992, Delegate for Dance by Philippe Douste-Blazy in 1995, and, finally, Dance Consultant alongside Dominique Wallon, then director for Music, Dance, Theatre and Shows (DMDTS) in 1998. 

On July 1st, 2000 he was named director of the Centre Chorégraphique National – Ballet de Lorraine, succeeding Pierre Lacotte who had directed the Centre since 1991. He was also appointed Officer in the Ordre national du Mérite, and Commander in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

In July 2011, he was appointed director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot, and reappointed for a period of three years as from July 1st, 2016. At the same time the theatre took on the new name of Chaillot - Theatre National de la Danse. He will remain at the helm of the theatre until 2021, when he will succeed Brigitte Lefèvre as director of the Cannes Dance Festival.

Source: Théâtre national de Chaillot

The National Center for Contemporary Dance - CNDC - was created in 1978 at the initiative of the Ministry of Culture and the City of Angers. It followed the B.T.C. Ballet contemporary theater directed by Françoise Adret and Jacques-Albert Cartier, transferred to Nancy. Designed as a school of choreographers and the headquarters of a permanent company, it is run by Alwin Nikolais for three years.

When Viola Farber succeeded him in 1981, the school specialized in the training of dancers. Viola Farber forms a new company and inaugurates a teacher training program.

In April 1984, the management of the CNDC was entrusted to Michel Reilhac. The center still trains dancers and teachers. It no longer has a permanent company but serves as a production platform through residences. Large companies of international renown (in residence for two to three months) and younger companies (in the context of the "Summer Quarters") are then present. This is how Merce Cunningham and his company inaugurate the large Bodinier studio and that successive personalities such as Régine Chopinot, Maguy Marin, Odile Duboc, Dominique Bagouet, Mathilde Monnier and Jean-François Duroure, Edward Lock, Hervé Robbe, Philippe Decouflé, Catherine Diverrès and Bernardo Montet, Daniel Larrieu, Trisha Brown, Wim Vandekeybus ...

In April 1988 the new director, Nadia Croquet, continues to develop a policy to support creation, with a more specific openness to Europe. In January 1993, Joëlle Bouvier and Régis Obadia were named artistic directors of the CNDC, then labeled CNDC l'Esquisse.

The CNDC, which became a national choreographic center (CCN) in the 1990s, reinforces its mission as a choreographic center through the production of shows and its role as artistic advisor while continuing the training. At the same time, from 1986 to 2006, he worked with the New Theater of Angers, a national drama center, to offer a program of choreographic performances, thus increasing the audience and the readability of the dance to the public by multiplying the glances on the creation contemporary.

In February 2004, the CNDC is under the direction of the choreographer Emmanuelle Huynh, it intends to perpetuate the tradition of experimental contemporary dance and offer a school in connection with the dynamics of contemporary creation. From 2011, the CNDC School has two major courses, one leads to the National Diploma of Professional Dancer (DNSPD) and the license, the second prepares for a master.

Robert Swinston, who was appointed artistic director of the CNDC in 2012 by the Board of Directors, takes office in January 2013. Create and encourage creativity, develop the legacy of Merce Cunningham, program shows in various aesthetics, train artists autonomous, versatile and of a high level as well as fostering the emergence of new talents, this is the purpose of his project for the CNDC. Communicating to the public the foundations of a creative approach, raising awareness among young people and making the CNDC shine at the local, national and international levels are Robert Swinston's objectives for the CNDC.

The directors of the CNDC since its creation:

Alwin Nikolais (from September 1978 to July 1981)
Viola Farber (from September 1981 to July 1983)
Michel Reilhac (from March 1984 to December 1987)
Nadia Croquet (March 1988 to December 1991)
Joëlle Bouvier and Régis Obadia (from January 1993 to June 2003)
Emmanuelle Huynh (from February 2004 to December 2012)
Robert Swinston since January 2013