MICHÈLE ANNE DE MEY

Michèle Anne De Mey, fascinated all her life by tales and legends, has undertaken an adaptation of one of Korea's founding myths. The tale Tangun Shin Wha tells how the gods granted a bear the power to be transformed into a man because of the patience and courage he shows. But instead of turning into a man, he is reborn in female form and ends up marrying Hwan-ung, the son of the god Hwan-in, who is so moved by such a display of sincerity and determination that he falls in love with her. According to the myth, the entire Korean race is born of this union.

Rich in allegory, the fable provides the choreographer with the perfect opportunity for a reflection on birth and childhood. Questioning these states of being inevitably leads to a contemplation of two of their corollaries: patience and ordeal.

On a stage deliberately stripped bare to represent the cave into which the bear withdraws for his transformation (reminiscent of Plato), the Korean dancer Kyung Hee Woo (P.A.R.T.S.) sets off on a course that leads her from animalism – represented by the bearskin that she sheds in front of us - to humanity, of which her entire body, now unveiled, is representative. In order to achieve this metamorphosis on stage, Michèle Anne De Mey uses ideas borrowed from the Taekwondo register: the katas of the Korean karate style form the secular structure that she uses in support of the creation of her moves. If we consider the position of importance that the animal metaphor has in certain styles of martial arts, it becomes clear how apt this vocabulary of movement is here.

Koma ("bear" in Korean) is a solo that takes on the form of a transformation, speaking out about the forces that can drive a being when it is transformed by the power of desire.

Credits

Belgian choreographer Michèle Anne De Mey  (Brussels, 1959) attended Mudra, the Brussels-based school founded by  Maurice Béjart from 1976 to 1979. She choreographed her first show, Passé Simple, in 1981, giving contemporary dance a new direction she subsequently followed with the two-handers Ballatum (1984) and Face à Face (1986).

In 1983, she became one of the four founding members of the Rosas  company. She spent six years working on devising and staging several  works by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, including Fase (1982), Rosas danst Rosas (1983), Elena’s Aria (1984) and Ottone, Ottone  (1988). Although Michèle Anne De Mey focuses on the connection between  dance and music, the choreography of her productions always has a strong drama content and places the dancer in a specific and innovative  relationship between stage and audience.

In 1990, while staging Sinfonia Eroica, she set up her own  company, Astragale.  There followed thirty or so productions that  enjoyed international success. Among them were Châteaux en Espagne (1991), Pulcinella (1994), Love Sonnets (1994), Cahier (1995), Katamenia (1997), Utopie (2001), Raining Dogs (2002) and 12 Easy Waltzes  (2004). Michèle Anne De Mey has also done important teaching work (in  Amsterdam, at INSAS in Brussels, at CNDC in Angers and at the École en  Couleurs, also in Brussels).

Her work as a choreographer has led to several films being made, including Love Sonnets and 21 Études à Danser by Thierry De Mey, and Face à Face  by Eric Pauwels. Devising her choreography from powerful music by  reputable composers, she has also worked with Robert Wyatt and Jonathan  Harvey. For many years now she has been forging close work partnerships  with other artists, like visual artist and scenographer Simon Siegmann,  Transquinquennal group member Stéphane Olivier and Grégory Grosjean with  whom she staged the two-hander 12 Easy Waltzes. In 2006, she revived Sinfonia Eroica, one of her landmark shows from the 1990s, a successful, irreverent and cheerful spectacle to the soundtrack of Beethoven’s Eroica  Symphony. This production has been staged more than a hundred times all  over the world since then. In 2007, she staged P.L.U.G., which deals  with the mechanics of mating and, in 2009, the one-person show Koma at  the Made in Korea festival started by BOZAR. This one-person show is  one of a series of four, with the other three being by Sidi Larbi  Cherkaoui, Arco Renz and Thomas Hauert. In 2009, she also devised Neige, using Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, an atmospheric sequel to Sinfonia Eroica. On the occasion of the VIA 2011 festival, she staged the première of Kiss & Cry,  alongside Jaco Van Dormael and in a team with Grégory Grosjean, Thomas  Gunzig, Julien Lambert, Nicolas Olivier and Sylvie Olivé. In May 2012,  she presented Lamento, a one-person show devised for and performed by dancer Gabriella Iacono, inspired by Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna.

Kiss & Cry was a great success,  playing 300 performances in 9 different languages in twenty or so  countries, and was seen by over 180,000 audience members. After this,  Michèle Anne De Mey and her team of talented designers devised Cold Blood within the context of Mons as European Capital of Culture in 2015, and this show has enjoyed the same worldwide success as Kiss & Cry.

Subsequently, Michèle Anne De Mey stepped down as director of  Charleroi Danses and restarted her company, Astragales. In Octobre 2016,  at the Théâtre National, she devised Amor, a poetical, powerful show in which, alone on the stage, Michèle Anne conveyed her own, intimate near-death experiences.

In 2019, at Liège opera, she choreographed ballet extracts for a new version of Verdi’s Aida, directed by Stefano Mazzonis. She was assisted by Fatou Traoré and worked with dancers and circus performers.

In November 2019, the choreographer will present her new work at the Théâtre des Martyrs, ‘River’, a fictional dance. This will be followed by the creation of the choreography for the opera Somnambula at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in collaboration with Jaco Van Dormael, who will be directing. The premiere was due to take place in March 2020, but was postponed because of the lockdown.

Failing to present her creations, and feeling the urge to push further the search for an encounter between fiction and dance, she shot her first short film in 2021 in collaboration with the young cinematographer Gaspard Pauwels. ‘Fiction dansée’ stars Violette Wanty and Aurélien Oudot, both dancers and acrobats. The film is inspired by confinement and huis-clos. It tells the story of a brother and sister locked in their family home.

In 2022, she presented her show Sinfonia Eroica at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège. Successful since its creation in 1990, this show has become a classic of contemporary dance. A real call to dance, it takes on a new dimension, accompanied by the Orchestre de l'Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège, conducted by Ayrton Desimpelaere.

Dusseldorf's Ballet Am Rhein has invited her to choreograph one of the four temperaments in the show created by George Balanchine. She will explore the phlegmatic temperament alongside other renowned choreographers, Hélène Blackburn, John Numeier and Demis Volpi, who will focus on anger, melancholy and sanguinity respectively. The premiere will take place in June 2022.

Source and more information: https://www.astragales.be/en/