Dancing Grandmothers
2016 - Director : Plasson, Fabien
Choreographer(s) : Ahn, Eun-Me (Ahn, Eun-Me)
Present in collection(s): Maison de la danse , Saisons 2010 > 2019
Video producer : Maison de la Danse
Dancing Grandmothers
2016 - Director : Plasson, Fabien
Choreographer(s) : Ahn, Eun-Me (Ahn, Eun-Me)
Present in collection(s): Maison de la danse , Saisons 2010 > 2019
Video producer : Maison de la Danse
Dancing Grandmothers
In October 2010, with no predefined itinerary, swept along by the encounters and roads of Chungcheong, Jeolla, Gyeongsang, and Gangwon provinces, Eun-Me Ahn asked elderly women, for the most part peasants, to dance for her, spontaneously. Some of these grandmothers were 60, others 90. They all looked happy when they danced. They were happy to still be able to dance, and happy that someone had asked them to do so. Their dances were so natural and lively that they drew into their movement the young professional dancers from my troupe. Each of their gestures reflected the harshness of their living conditions. It was as if we were looking at an extract from a documentary speaking both of the past and the ground. The wrinkled bodies of these grandmothers were like a book in which had been recorded lives lived over the past century. Each of their dances represented an era, deployed on a harmonious rhythm in a brief fraction of time. Each time we met one of these women, we found ourselves looking at the History of present-day Korea that was personified in their bodies, as though the latter were a History book of our country, far more concrete than any other account from written or oral tradition.
From these meetings, the images filmed in the provinces, and the reactions of the dancers in the troupe, a spectacle both tender and mind-blowing was born, combining the energies of all to, finally, draw the public into the whirlwind of its energy. A tribute to olden times as much as to the immutable vitality of movement. As Eun-Me Ahn still writes: “For me, movement does not only take place at a given time, but rather represents a kind of fossil called on to be activated at a given time to create, through its different gestures, a whole world of suppleness where the present time is infinitely expanded.”
Source: Lola Gruber, Paris Quartier d’été
Ahn, Eun-Me
The famous custard pie that is the confrontation "between tradition and modernity"... How many creators have struggled to find the way to describe what is finally the lot of every artist : one the one hand to know, understand, integrate what the ancients did; on the other to forgot them, overcome them and hope to find something new. Quite a vast program...
On this level, Eun-Me Ahn has found new, unexpected and exciting ways. This first comes from her itinerary, marked as much by the learning and exploration of shamanistic tradition as by the many years spent in New York or a profound friendship with the missed Pina Bausch (who invited her many times in Wuppertal). Korean and cosmopolitan, figure of the avant-garde but also choreographer of the very official 2002 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in Daegu and presented in the most important international festivals, she knows how to improve the beauties of contrast, mow polka dots, stripes and flower, how to play with the most pop colors before switching to the most solemn austerity, how to play with the most subtle shades of androgyny or une slowness to make trance rhythm burst...
Educated at the school of rigor, precise, demanding and of a all Korean discipline, Eun-Me Ahn is also a daredevil performer, ready for all kind of piracies. One have seen her jump from the top of a crane to attack a piano with axe and scissors, rip off herself her fairy dress made of white ties to distribute the pieces to the audience while performing a teddybear dance, bury herself with a clown costumes under a rain of baloons, locked up behind bars in a duet with a chicken, or dressed up as a mushroom... But one would be wrong thinking it is provocation. It is rather the affirmation of a curiosity and a freedom held by work and style pushed to their most unexpected limits.
Gadja productions
Plasson, Fabien
Born in 1977, Fabien Plasson is a video director specialized in the field of performing arts (dance , music, etc).
During his studies at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (joined in 1995) Fabien discovered video art. He was trained by various video artists (Joel Bartoloméo Pascal Nottoli , Eric Duyckaerts , etc).
He first experimented with the creation of installations and cinematic objects.
From 2001 to 2011, he was in charge of Ginger & Fred video Bar’s programming at La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. He discovered the choreographic field and the importance of this medium in the dissemination, mediation and pedagogical approach to dance alongside Charles Picq, who was a brilliant video director and the director of the video department at that time.
Today, Fabien Plasson is the video director at La Maison de la Danse and in charge of the video section of Numeridanse.tv, an online international video library, and continues his creative activities, making videos of concerts, performances and also creating video sets for live performances.
Sources: Maison de la Danse ; Fabien Plasson website
More information: fabione.fr
Dancing Grandmothers
Artistic direction / Conception : Eun-Me Ahn
Choreography : Eun-Me Ahn
Interpretation : Eun-Me Ahn, Hyosub Bae, Ji Hye Ha, Bong Su Kim, Youngmin Jung, Hyekyoung Kim, Kibum Kim, Ei Sul Lee, Hyeonseok Lee, Sihan Park (danseurs) / Chang Nang Ahn, Il Mi Joo, Kyung Ja Kang, Myungja Kim, Jungok Lee, Imsook Lee, Myoung Sook Lee, Jeongaie Lee, Myungok Yoo, Mija Yoon, Jung Hee Yoon (grand-mères) / Sang-Won An (grand-père)
Artistic consultancy / Dramaturgy : Chun Wooyong
Set design : Eun-Me Ahn, Sunny Im/Yunkwan Design
Original music : Young-Gyu Jang
Video conception : Tae-Seok Lee, Jiwoong Nam, Seunghwan Kim, Sangwha Lee
Lights : Jin-Young Jang
Costumes : Eun-Me Ahn
Production / Coproduction of the choreographic work : Dancing Grandmothers a fait l’objet d’une commande du Doosan Art Center (DAC) en production partagée avec Eun-Me Ahn Company / Coproduction festival Paris Quartier d’été / Diffusion Mister Dante – Didier Michel et Jean-Marie Chabot / Spectacle créé en février 2011 au Doosan Art Center, Séoul
Production / Coproduction of the video work : Maison de la Danse
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