"O.C.C.C." [Oh! Yes, yes, yes!] (pronounced Oh! Si, si, si!) is the last section of the Fin des Temps (End of Time) trilogy begun by Régine Chopinot with “Chair-Obscur” and the erasure of the past in 2002 and followed by "WHA" and the disappearance of the future in 2004 on the following theme: “What remains to be danced?”. For the choreographer, this does not represent a closure as much as a marking of time “present in which it had opened” and “an exposure of the dance itself” (interview with Régine Chopinot, in L'Humanité, 20 March, 2006). Régine Chopinot would say that this was her “most Bagouetian” piece, in reference to the choreographer Dominique Bagouet who died in 1992 (programme from the Montpellier Danse Festival, July 2007). She put in it everything she could ever have learned: “an account of what has motivated me since 1978: the taste of the difference of 1985's “Défilé” (The fashion show), the energy of “Appel d'air” (In-draught) in 1981, and the relationship which I always have had with the stage and my work with the company” (programme from the Montpellier Danse Festival, July 2007). She draws up a sort of inventory of the years she spent as director of the CCN La Rochelle, instilling it with some reinvention. According to Annie Suquet, this piece also returns to “the impossibility of plenitude (of the being, of the direction…)”, which can be linked to the analyses of Andre Lepecki on the origins of the dance on stage in the West (cf. Annie Suquet, “Chopinot”, Le Mans: Cénomane, 2010, p.103-104 and André Lepecki, “Exhausting dance. Performance and the politics of movement”, New York: Routledge, 2006).

That begins with the end, with the darkness and the dancers coming to greet the audience. Set design and the lighting accentuate this dominant darkness, thanks to a wall of light produced by Maryse Gautier, in front of which the dancers move in against the light, as if in a scene from a film. In the darkness, alternating with the solos, the bodies move in parallel, following diagonals or lines, and handle objects painted in black (bags, tiles, javelins and other elements of decoration, which brings to mind previous shows by BARC), as if in a building kit. The soundtrack, put together by DJ U-Zul, is strident rock'n'roll music, metal-like, which alternates with the sounds of ululating women. Very visual – the set designer Jean Michel Bruyère is here again – this piece resembles a shadow theatre, a puppet show or a ballet of monochrome ghosts.

““O.C.C.C.” is concerned with “the time that remains”, even at the end of time: the present. “O.C.C.C.” is what remains to be done, what can be still done, in the place the performance is happening and while you hold, tight and fast, onto a last piece of time which, far from progressing, from passing, of happening there, is reduced permanently, by the before and the after. […] The title O.C.C.C is not serious but it allows the expression of something which I always refused to do: to say yes. It offers me a certain detachment and the power to accept the things in me which are beyond me.”

(Programme from the Chapelle Fromentin, La Rochelle, March 2006)

Press quotes

“With OCCC, Régine Chopinot delivers an inventive sketch which summarises twenty years spent at the head of the Centre chorégraphique national Poitou-Charentes (Poitou-Charentes National Choreography Centre) in La Rochelle. […] She thus delivers a sketch of the time that remains, a sort of inventory and assessment of what gives her work such contrasting faces and ends up creating a style: the energy, the connection, the differences, the gaze…”

Isabelle Danto, Le Figaro, 13 March, 2006

“With OCCC, Régine Chopinot examines dance from all sides of the editing table.  She observes it with the magnifying glass in order to better x-ray the present time.”

Muriel Steinmetz, L'Humanité, 20 March 2006

Hervé Gauville, “Millimaitre”, Libération, 17 March, 2006

Updating: February 2013

Régine Chopinot, born in 1952 in Fort-de-l'Eau (today known as Bordj El Kiffan), in Algeria, was attracted to choreographic art from early childhood. After studying classical dance, she discovered contemporary dance with Marie Zighera in 1974. She moved to Lyon where she founded her first company in 1978, the Compagnie du Grèbe, which included dancers, actors and musicians. Here, she created her first choreographies. Three years later, she was awarded second prize in the Concours chorégraphique international de Bagnolet (Bagnolet International Choreographic Contest) for “Halley's Comet” (1981), later known as “Appel d'air”. Her next pieces of work “Délices” (Delights) and “Via”, introduced other media including the cinema to the world of dance. In 1983 with “Délices”, Régine Chopinot began her longstanding partnership with the fashion designer, Jean Paul Gaultier, which would characterize the period, which included works such as “Le Défilé” (The Fashion show) (1985), “K.O.K.” (1988), “ANA” (1990), “Saint Georges” (1991) and “Façade” (1993). In 1986, Régine Chopinot was appointed director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Poitou-Charentes (Poitou-Charentes National Choreography Centre) in La Rochelle (where she succeeded Jacques Garnier and Brigitte Lefèvre's Théâtre du Silence), which went on to become the Ballet Atlantique-Régine Chopinot (BARC), in 1993. Régine Chopinot made a myriad of artistic encounters: from visual artists like Andy Goldsworthy, Jean Le Gac and Jean Michel Bruyère, to musicians such as Tôn-Thât Tiêt and Bernard Lubat.

At the beginning of the 90s, she moved away from – according to her own expression – “ultra-light spaces” in which, at a young age, she had become acknowledged, in particular through her partnership with Jean Paul Gaultier. She then became fascinated with experimenting on confronting contemporary dance with natural elements and rhythms and on testing age-old, complex body sciences and practices, such as yoga. In 1999, as part of “associate artists”, Régine Chopinot invited three figures from the world of contemporary dance to partner with her for three years on her artistic project: Françoise Dupuy, Dominique Dupuy and Sophie Lessard joined the BARC's troupe of permanent dancers and consultants-researchers, as performers, pedagogues and choreographers.

In 2002, she initiated the “triptyque de la Fin des Temps” (Triptych of the End of Time), a long questioning of choreographic writing and creation subsequent to her creation of a voluntary state of crisis of general notions of time, of memory and of construction. “Chair-obscur”, her first chapter, focused on erasing the past, the memory, whilst “WHA” was based on the disappearance of the future. “O.C.C.C.” dealt with the “time that's left”, with what is left to be done, with what can still be done, in that simple, yet essential spot called performance. In 2008, “Cornucopiae”, the last work created within the Institution, concluded the end of a form of performance and opened the doors to another approach to sensorial perception.

Concurrently to her choreographic work, Régine Chopinot worked, as a performer, with other artists that she was close to: Alain Buffard (“Wall dancin' - Wall fuckin'”, 2003; “Mauvais Genre”, 2004), Steven Cohen (“I wouldn't be seen dead in that!”, 2003). In addition, she trained and directed Vietnamese dancers as part of a partnership with the Vietnam Higher School of Dance and the Hanoi Ballet-Opera (“Anh Mat”, 2002; “Giap Than”, 2004). In 2008, the choreographer left the CCN in La Rochelle and created the Cornucopiae - the independent dance Company, a new structure that would, henceforth, harbour creation and repertoire, all the works of Régine Chopinot. In 2010, she chose to live and work in Toulon, by its port.

Since 2009, Régine Chopinot has been venturing, questioning and intensifying her quest for the body in movement linked to the strength of the spoken word, through cultures organized by and on oral transmission, in New Caledonia, New Zealand and Japan. These last three years have been punctuated by a myriad of artistic creations: choreographies and films resulting from artistic In Situ experiences were created as part of the South Pacific Project. A privileged relationship initiated in 2009 with the Du Wetr Group (Drehu/Lifou) bore its fruits with the creation of “Very Wetr!”at the Avignon Festival in July 2012 and went on to be reproduced at the Centre national de la danse (National Centre for Dance) in February 2013.

More information

cornucopiae.net

Last update : March 2012