Created on 1979, october, at Stadsschouwburg, Eindhoven (Pays-Bas).
Dance. The title of this monument to choreographic art  instantly puts the research work of Lucinda Childs on the horizon, i.e. a  dance form which is free of any intentionality or theatricality, and  which is centered exclusively on the expression of its pure essence. In  the manner of Jackson Pollock’s abstract paintings, this composition is a  celebration of the perpetual engendering of form through movement.  Created in 1979, Dance constitutes a synthesis between the silence and sparseness of her previous works, such as Radial Courses, and the stage work developed in conjunction with Philip Glass and Robert Wilson in the Einstein on the Beach  opera. She once again turned to Philip Glass, whose repetitive melodic  structures provided the perfect accompaniment to the purity of her  choreographic language, as collaborator on this first, large-scale piece  designed for the theatre. The artist Sol LeWitt added to the equation  with his proposition of a film-based mechanism which duplicated and  enlarged the flux of the onstage movements. In three twenty minute-long  sections, Lucinda Childs gave shape to a glissando of aerial  gestures continually altering in accordance with the loops in Philip  Glass’s music, setting up the possibility of tiny variations. In this  work, simple, basic, steps are used to trace out circles, arcs, and  diagonals on the ground, forming a vast counterpoint, and then echoed by  the projected images. The superimposed presence of the film - remade by  dancers from Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon for the occasion, and based on  the original - gives rise to the interpenetration of silhouettes and  their doubles. This bewildering optical effect transports the audience’s  gaze into the beating heart of the movement, and imbibes the space with  a multidimensional volume. The resulting, plan-like formation is one in  which the different lines dream their way into and out of different  compositions, in a sliding, floating, fluid and altogether timeless  world.
Source: Festival d'Automne à Paris

Lucinda Childs began her career at the Judson Dance Theater in 1963 where she choreographed thirteen works and performed in works of Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, and Robert Morris. Since forming her dance company in 1973, she has created over fifty works, both solo and ensemble.

In 1976, she collaborated with Robert Wilson and Philip Glass on the opera Einstein on the Beach, as principal performer and choreographer for which she received a Village Voice Obie award. In the subsequent revival in '84 Childs choreographed the two "Field Dances" for the opera. Childs has appeared in a number of Wilson's major productions among them, Marguerite Duras' Maladie de la Mort, Wilson's I Was Sitting on my Patio This Guy Appeared I Thought I Was Hallucinating, Heiner Muller's Quartett, and Wilson and Glass' opera White Raven and Arvo Part’s Adams Lament. and collaborated with Robert Wilson and Mikhail Baryshnikov on Wilson’s new production Letter to a Man which premiered in Spoleto Italy in 2015.

She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979 for her collaboration, Dance, with music by Philip Glass, and film décor by Sol LeWitt. In a Washington Post review of Dance, Alan M. Kriegsman wrote, "a few times, at most, in the course of a decade a work of art comes along that makes a genuine breakthrough, defining for us new modes of perception and feeling and clearly belonging as much to the future as to the present. Such a work is Dance".

Since 1981, she has choreographed over thirty works for major ballet companies which include the Paris Opera Ballet, Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, and Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Company. She has also worked as choreographer and more recently both choreographer and director for sixteen opera productions including Mozart's Zaide for La Monnaie in Brussels, Stravinsky's Le Rossignol et Oedipe, Vivaldi's Farnace, and Handel's Alessandro, voted "Opera of the Year" by Mezzo-TV 2013. In 2014 she directed a new production of John Adams Dr. Atomic for the Opera du Rhin and Jean Baptiste Lully's Atys and Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice for Opera Kiel in Germany.

The Summerscape Festival at Bard College commissioned the revival of Dance in 2009, which continues to tour in the United States and Europe and is currently included in the repertory of the Lyons Opera Ballet. Available Light (1983) with music by John Adams and set by architect, Frank Gehry was revived for the 2015-16 season, and she is recently choreographed Beethoven’s Grande Fugue for the Lyons Opera Ballet, which premieres in November, 2016.

Childs received the Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement in 2001, and was elevated from the rank of Officer to Commander in France's Order of Arts and Letters in 2004, and in 2009 she received the NEA/NEFA American Masterpiece Award. In 2017, she was awarded the Venice Biennale de la Danse Golden Lion Award, and the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Source : Lucinda Childs’ Website

More informations :

http://www.lucindachilds.com/

Author, filmmaker and video artist Charles Picq (1952-2012) entered working life in the 70s through theatre and photography. A- fter resuming his studies (Maîtrise de Linguistique - Lyon ii, Maîtrise des sciences et Techniques de la Communication - grenoble iii), he then focused on video, first in the field of fine arts at the espace Lyonnais d'art Contemporain (ELAC) and with the group « Frigo », and then in dance.
   On creation of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon in 1980, he was asked to undertake a video documentation project that he has continued ever since. During the ‘80s, a decade marked in France by the explosion of contemporary dance and the development of video, he met numerous artists such as andy Degroat, Dominique Bagouet, Carolyn Carlson, régine Chopinot, susanne Linke, Joëlle Bouvier and regis Obadia, Michel Kelemenis. He worked in the creative field with installations and on-stage video, as well as in television with recorded shows, entertainment and documentaries.

His work with Dominique Bagouet (80-90) was a unique encounter. He documents his creativity, assisting with Le Crawl de Lucien and co-directing with his films Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux and 10 anges. in the 90s he became director of video development for the Maison de la Danse and worked, with the support of guy Darmet and his team, in the growing space of theatre video through several initiatives:
       - He founded a video library of dance films with free public access. This was a first for France. Continuing the video documentation of theatre performances, he organised their management and storage.
       - He promoted the creation of a video-bar and projection room, both dedicated to welcoming school pupils.
       - He started «présentations de saisons» in pictures.
       - He oversaw the DVD publication of Le tour du monde en 80 danses, a pocket video library produced by the Maison de la Danse for the educational sector.

       - He launched the series “scènes d'écran” for television and online. He undertook the video library's digital conversion and created Numeridanse.

His main documentaries are: enchaînement, Planète Bagouet, Montpellier le saut de l'ange, Carolyn Carlson, a woman of many faces, grand ecart, Mama africa, C'est pas facile, Lyon, le pas de deux d'une ville, Le Défilé, Un rêve de cirque.

He has also produced theatre films: Song, Vu d'ici (Carolyn Carlson), Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux, 10 anges, Necesito and So schnell, (Dominique Bagouet), Im bade wannen, Flut and Wandelung (Susanne Linke), Le Cabaret Latin (Karine Saporta), La danse du temps (Régine Chopinot), Nuit Blanche (Abou Lagraa), Le Témoin (Claude Brumachon), Corps est graphique (Käfig), Seule et WMD (Françoise et Dominique Dupuy), La Veillée des abysses (James Thiérrée), Agwa (Mourad Merzouki), Fuenteovejuna (Antonio Gades), Blue Lady revistied (Carolyn Carlson).

Source: Maison de la Danse de Lyon