Choreography by Daniel Larrieu
An extract remodelled by the Atelier d’improvisation (Alès), artistic manager Geneviève Choukroun, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2015) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
Initiated by Marie-Claire Gelly-Aubaret, the Atelier d’improvisation, set up in 2008, consists of ten dancers. Geneviève Choukroun is their leader with the broad aim of developing contemporary dance in Alès and its surrounding area. Improvisation is at the heart of the practice of the participants, who boast a varied technical arsenal: Martha Graham, jazz, contemporary, classical, to name but a few. Regular meetings are programmed with artists such as Marc Vincent, Alain Joule, Françoise Leick, and Daniel Dobbels. The association has also forged ties with Le Cratère, scène nationale d’Alès, which places its dance studio at its disposal. 

The project
For the nine interpreters of the group, Daniel Larrieu’s show On était si tranquille, transmitted by Anne Laurent, was an obvious choice due to its spatial writing work and its way of enhancing simple and direct human presences. The wide breadth of sequences and musics appeared to be an easy and subtle approach to contemporary dance. The chosen extract, in the original line-up of fifteen dancers, was adapted without upsetting the short form structure (solo, duos, trios). Great attention was paid to the essence of Daniel Larrieu’s gestures, the group having read some of his writings, to his relationship with music, his quality in the intention of movement and his spatial treatment.  

The choreographer
A leading personality of 1980s French contemporary dance, Daniel Larrieu, first a dancer in Anne-Marie Reynaud’s company after studying horticulture, he created the company Astrakan in 1982. He quickly imposed a fluid and graphic set of gestures that causes space to vibrate between bodies by plugging them into the same energy socket. The director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Tours from 1994 to 2002, he has choreographed some thirty pieces including Waterproof (1986), an aquatic piece, On était si tranquille (1998), and Cenizas (2001). Now a free-lance choreographer, he divides his time between dance, theatre, installation and pedagogical projects. He was the administrator delegated to dance at the SACD. 

A key figure of French contemporary dance, appointed as director of the National Choreography Centre (CCN) of Tours in 1994, he has pursued his creative work with the Astrakan Company since 2004. He has multiplied his choreographic experiences with, in particular, “Marche, danses de verdure” (2004), “Never Mind” (2006) and “Lux” (2010). In 2010, he danced on drifting ice floes in Greenland and created “Ice Dream, installation plastique”. In 2011, he created “Big Little B” and “En Piste” with Pascale Houbin and Dominique Boivin. He became the associate artist at the Manège in Reims and at the Échangeur in Fère-en-Tardenois. At the beginning of 2012 at the Athénée Theatre, hand-in-hand with Gloria Paris, he created “Divine”, a theatrical variation choreographed from “Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs” (Our Lady of the Flowers) by Jean Genet.

Source : Daniel Larrieu

Further information : Daniel Larrieu Website

From live stage images to life in images, the  director and video artist Karim Zeriahen seems to have found the  shortest way. Since the beginning of the 90s, when he worked in close  relationship with choreographer Philippe Decouflé, he learned how to put  the art of stage in motion, contemporary dance most of the time. Karim  Zeriahen then starts a fruitful collaboration with Montpellier based  choreographer Mathilde Monnier. Stop, Videlilah, day of night, short  films adapted from her stage creations. Each time, Karim Zeriahen's   camera takes over the place with movement, the body language is not  frozen but magnified. Choreographer Herman Diephuis also joins this  gallery of dancing portraits. Documentaries on figures such like Albert  Maysles or Hubert de Givenchy and from Joe Dalessandro to Paul  Morrissey, he sets a signature, a camera always in action with  confidence.

Today the director goes further with a new  project and tracks the subtle movements of the body language beyond the  physical appearance. A collection of living portraits as unique pièces  reminding us of the master portraitists of renaissance. These living  natures consists in filming the subject in a certain amount of time,  almost still, with signs of respiration, eye blinks, as if it were  posing for a painting. They are then displayed on a flat screen with a  memory card. With this collection starting, Karim Zeriahen, with his  documentary and artist vision, interrogates himself about the virtual  world filled with images. By taking a pause, and his models with him, he  questions the way we look at things, the way we look at life.

Source: Philippe Noisette 

En savoir plus: www.karimzeriahen.com

Amateur Dance and Repertory is a companion program to amateur practice beyond the dance class and the technical learning phase. Intended for groups of amateur dancers, it opens a space of sharing for those who wish to deepen a practice and a knowledge of the dance in relation to its history.

Laurent Barré
 Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
 Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
 +33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr

Source: CN D

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme