Choreography Olivier Dubois 
Dance performance Marianne Descamps et Olivier Dubois

“A work you should see and hear. The whole story begins with the desire to go in search of a man and to share a personal admiration, something in common, a past era and dare to remember the carefree days, the inestimable value of talent. But also to speak of love, fascination, of that other, that mirror and reality of excess, ambition and power. A trio, a man, a woman, a voice… a love ballad about intimacy in public. This is neither biography nor homage, but when you rub shoulders with Frank Sinatra - ‘The Voice' - of course you have to recall the talent, the hard work, the consolation of an unforgettable voice, but also suggest the blindness that this can generate. Should one hush up the oh-so-dark side where talent buys dreams and forgetfulness? Is it still possible to listen to the artist and no longer see the man, however ambiguous he might be? Forgive the man for not condemning humanity to silence? Sing, keep on singing… dance, keep on dancing… Elegant scenery, a multitude of costumes. Between a cruise liner and a big show in Manhattan, from the giant stage to the small dark room, the excess of an era, of a talent, and dancing through it all. Delving into the dream and plucking from it the magnificent and the vile to reveal the monster. Two performers saturated with this voice to grasp all the ambiguity of the character, the ambiguity of the love life. Black, a lot of black… dark, deep, murky, brilliant, elegant, mysterious, reflective… a black sea. Some faces, looks worn in public… but what are you watching? The music? Frank Sinatra, for sure, hits and yet more hits.”

Olivier Dubois

Credits

Chorégraphie et scénographie Olivier Dubois assistant à la création Cyril Accorsi interprétation Marianne Descamps et Olivier Dubois musique Frank Sinatra arrangements musicaux François Caffenne création lumières Patrick Riou création costumes Cédrick Debeuf régie générale Séverine Combes, François Michaudel production administration Béatrice Horn

Production COD coproduction Biennale de la danse de Lyon, Théâtre National de Chaillot, L'apostrophe-Scène nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d'Oise, NEXT Festival, Théâtre des Salins-Scène nationale de Martigues, Le Prisme|Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Ménagerie de verre
Avec le soutien de DRAC d'Ile de France – Ministère de la Culture et de la communication pour l'aide au projet, de l'association Beaumarchais-SACD pour l'aide à la production, du Centre National de la Danse / Pantin et de l'Atelier de Paris-Carolyn Carlson pour le prêt de studios, du Studio Harcourt Paris - Accueil Théâtre de la Renaissance, Biennale de la danse de Lyon

Production Maison de la Danse date du document vidéo 2010 réalisation Fabien Plasson Updating : February 2011

Olivier Dubois has been shaking up the French contemporary dance  scene for more than a decade with some of the most radical choreographic  work to date.

The director of Ballet du Nord from 2014 to 2017, he was named one  of the twenty-five best dancers in the world in 2011 by Dance Europe  magazine and boasts a unique experience working between creation,  interpretation and pedagogy.

Olivier Dubois has performed for Angelin Preljocaj, Cirque du  Soleil, Jan Fabre, Dominique Boivin, Sasha Waltz and many others. In  2006, he was invited by the French Authors’ Society SACD and the  Festival d’Avignon to create a piece as part of its ‘Les Sujets à vif’  series. His work Pour tout l’or du monde (For All the Gold in the World) subsequently received the jury prize from the Professional Critics’ Association. At the 2008 Festival d’Avignon, he created Faune(s), based on the famous piece by Nijinski, and won the Prix Jardin d’Europe, the European prize for emerging choreography.

His exhibition L’interprète dévisagé (The Faceless Interpreter) at the Centre National de la Danse in Paris in 2009 was well received.

In 2010, he presented Spectre, a commission by the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, and created L’homme de l’Atlantique, a duet based on the music of Frank Sinatra, for the Lyon Dance Biennale.

In 2009, he started the trilogy Étude critique pour un trompe-l’œil (Critical Study for a Trompe L’Oeil) with the creation of Révolution (Revolution) at the Ménagerie de Verre in Paris, followed by the solo Rouge (Red) in 2011 and concluded by the provocative Tragédie (Tragedy), created at the Festival d’Avignon in 2012.

As part of Marseille 2013, European Capital of Culture, Dubois created Élégie (Elegy) for the National Ballet of Marseille. The same year he was named best choreographer at the Danza & Danza Awards for Tragédie and Élégie.

In 2015, he created two new pieces: Mon élue noire Sacre #2, a solo for Germaine Acogny, and Les Mémoires d’un seigneur, performed by a dancer from the Company and 40 male amateur dancers.

Olivier Dubois also shares his creations with amateur dancers. In 2011, Envers et face à tous (Against and Facing All) was performed by 120 dancers at Prisme d’Élancourt, followed in 2013 by Origami, which featured 1,000 lower grade and high school students from Roubaix. During the last Nuit Blanche in Paris, he staged Mille et une danses (Thousand and One Dances) with the participation of 300 amateur dancers. Dubois also collaborates with the Ballet Junior de Genève training school.

The trilogy Étude critique pour un trompe-l’œil (Critical Study for a Trompe L’Oeil) was concluded in 2016 with Auguri,  a piece for 22 dancers that premiered at the International Summer  Festival Kampnagel in Hamburg and was presented for the first time in  France at the Biennale de Lyon. In February 2017, Olivier Dubois  produced De l’origine (Of the Origin) for the Royal Swedish Ballet and 7 x Rien (7 x Nothing), his first piece for young audiences.

In spring 2018, he performed a solo titled Pour sortir au jour (Coming Forth by Day),  for which the premiere took place at the Festival de Marseille. The  following year, Olivier Dubois created a new piece for 8 dancers and one  musician, Tropismes, presented recently at  CentQuatre-Paris. The result of two years of work between Egypt and  France, its new French-Egyptian creation for 7 Egyptian performers  (music and dance), Itmahrag premiered in January 2021 at La Filature, Scène nationale de Mulhouse.

In July 2022, he re-created Tragédie, new edit (2012) with some of
the former dancers and young performers for the Marseille
Festival, then on tour across Europe.

Source and more information: https://www.olivierdubois.org/en/