“This way of moving, this relationship with the ground, this internal bubbling, volcanic in fact, I have brought them into my consciousness, I have verbalised them”.

In the course of the ECUMe* project Sylvie Robert met Anjara Rasamiarison, who was from Antananarivo and with whom she collaborated on the creation of Murmur. Through two cultures, Malgasy and Reunionese, the choreographer explores the notion of breath until its annihilation.  

For the choreographer, the “materials of the body” converge into the notion of an internal bubbling, just like that of a volcano: this magma is the life breath of the earth. The urgency of survival in Madagascar is another breath of vitality, where the difficult living conditions differ from the European way of life seen in Reunion Island. A Malgasy ritual found in the highlands, that of the turning of the dead, permeates the choreography. It consists of digging up the bodies of the ancestors, adorning the grave in celebration, wrapping them in new shrouds, then conducting a reburial. 

Backed into their physical corners, the exhausted dancers draw on the lifting of their diaphragm generating a growing compression of their chest and shoulders. The jerky exhalation impacts the entire body, like the movement of contractions, spasms that weigh down the performers leaving them merely the vector of a powerful energy from the earth. 

The choreographer Sylvie Robert was part of the ECUMe project (Expérience Chorégraphique Ultra-Marine) in 2012, organised by the TEAT Cham Fleuri | TEAT Plein Air Departmental Theatres of Reunion Island. This project brought together eleven dancers from the Indian Ocean in a programme of exchanges with Yuval Pick, director of the National Choreographic Centre at Rillieux-la-Pape and the National Dance Centre.

Source : Lalanbik

The choreographer Sylvie Robert was born in 1967 in Saint-Denis, Reunion Island. She made her debut in dance with private lessons from Jeanine Hubert Delisle, dancing ballet then jazz. She decided to go to train in Montpellier and obtained her Teaching Certificate in 1989. In 1996 she obtained her State Diploma in contemporary dance. 

She decided to continue her training in New York and followed courses in several schools, including those of Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown. It was the discovery of the work of Kirstie Simson on contact improvisation in dance which set her path as a teacher in another direction, and she then used this tool extensively in her creative work. In 2006, she was invited to Italy to take part in producing a documentary on the work of Kirstie Simson entitled “Force of Nature” directed by Katrina McPherson.

On her return to Reunion Island in 2008, she created her own company Argile and with them she produced Vagues plurielles, where she was accompanied on stage by the cantor of Maloya, Danyèl Waro. She is always in collaboration with musicians on stage, and live music is inseparable from her work on instant composition. For the artist, the music produces a mutual understanding between dancers and musicians.

Her choreographic works and performances include Clignements d’Elles (2011), Les batteurs (2013) and Murmur (2014).

Source : Lalanbik’s website

More information : 

https://www.lalanbik.org

Lalanbik was founded in 2014, in Reunion Island. It contributes to the  valorization of actors and choreographics writings of Indian Ocean  territories. Lalanbik implement online ressources tools : the first is  its website, concerning the Indian Ocean Dance news, and the other one  is its online video library, which brings contents about contemporary  and traditional dance writings. Lalanbik works in partnership to lead  its actions in favor of the widening of publics with : libraries,  theatres, dance schools, schools and higher education.

Source : Lalanbik's website

More information : www.lalanbik.org/