Ten years on, it is interesting to reread the reactions to Pâquerette, François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea’s first work, following its premiere. The response to the arrival of this unique duo on the choreography scene was as ambiguous as the work they were presenting. Ultimately, the question is deciding from what perspective to view this challenging work: should it be seen as a ‘contra-sexual manifesto’, a choreographic fantasy, a précis of preciosity or a physical performance? All of these hypotheses are valid. Indeed, with Pâquerette it is not simply a question of what there might be to see, but of reassessing the frameworks that condition our vision. The anus, that violet carnation celebrated by Rimbaud, is by turns principle of (invisible) pleasure, an object of urges, dynamic crux, orifice and generator of movement. Thus the journey that they propose starts out from a concealing – borrowing from the iconography of the trance, of beatitude – enabling an unveiling, and then a paradoxical setting into motion. Along the way, a veritable cartography of the gaze is traced, seeking to expose bodies moved by other principles. Encompassing elementary physics in the form of thrusts, suspensions and penetrations, a choreographic exercise and erotic live show, Pâquerette has lost none of its disturbing ambivalence. Seeing the work again today makes it possible to reinterpret it in the light of subsequent projects, and to understand certain issues more clearly. It’s an enquiry, simultaneously literal and metaphorical, into dance through its orifices, gaps and unexplored zones.

”Ms. Bengolea, from Argentina, and Mr. Chaignaud, from France, have been working together since 2005. They are an inimitable pair, pinpointing an exhilarating place where fear meets  bravery. […] “Pâquerette” is hardly erotic; it’s more about sexual politics and levels of sensation. Ms. Bengolea and Mr. Chaignaud know how to get a viewer’s attention, yet their cheeky style of shock shakes you up in the best sense. You walk through the world a little more aware  of what it means to be alive. The metamorphosis, it seems, works two  ways.”

Gia Kourlas – The New York Times (Source : website of the company http://vlovajobpru.com)

Born in Buenos-Aires, Cecilia Bengolea studied urban dance forms, before to pursue studies in anthropological dances with Eugenio Barba, as well as Philosophy and Art History at the University of Buenos Aires. In 2001, she moved to Paris and followed the training Ex.e.r.c.e. directed by Mathilde Monnier in Montpellier.
In dialogue with Levi Strauss’s œuvre Tristes tropiques, Cecilia Bengolea co-directed two videos in 2011: La Beauté (tôt) vouée à se défaire with Donatien Veisman and Cri de Pilaga with Juliette Bineau. As a dancer, choreographer and performance artist, Cecilia Bengolea perceives dance and performance as ‘animated sculpture’ and welcomes the fact that these forms allow her to become both ‘object and subject at the same time’.

In 2016, Bengolea was commissioned by the ICA for London Art Night 2016 to present a video installation into holographic mirrors at Covent Garden Market and perform an outdoor participatory dancehall practice in the historical West Piazza of Covent Garden with ballerina Erika Miyauichi and dancehall artist Damion BG Dancerz. Bengolea also works with artists Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Monika Gintersdorfer, Knut Klassen as well as Jamaican Dancehall artists such as Joan Mendy and Damion BG dancerz. In collaboration with Jeremy Deller (UK), she co-directed the film RythmAssPoetry (rap) commissioned by the Biennale de Lyon 2015. Their second film, Bombom’s Dream, shot in Jamaica in 2016, commissioned by Hayward Gallery London and Sao Paulo Biennial 2016.

In spring 2018 Cecilia Bengolea created Insect Train with Florentina Holzinger, a collaborative piece devoted to the interface between nature and artifice in the human body.

Source and more information: https://vlovajobpru.com/en/show/

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).

Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud have been collaborating since 2005. Together, they created Pâquerette (2005-2008), Sylphides (2009), Castor et Pollux (2010), Danses Libres (2010), (M)IMOSA (with Trajal Harrell and Marlene Monteiro Freitas, 2011), altered natives’ Say Yes To Another Excess –TWERK (2012), Dub Love (2013), DFS  (2016). In 2014, the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon commissioned them to  create a ballet for seven dancers on pointe shoes, set to Toru Takemitsu  music composition How slow the wind. In 2015, Bengolea and Chaignaud were commissioned by the Ballet de Lorraine to produce a new work set to Devoted, a music by Philip Glass. On the same year, they premiered a new piece, entitled The Lighters’ Dancehall Polyphony for Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal. The performance Sylphides,  written for vacuumed bodies in latex fetish envelopes won the Award de  la Critique de Paris in 2009 and the Young Artist Prize at Gwangju  Biennial, Korea in 2014. Over the past few years, they have presented  work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Kitchen in New York, Tokyos  Spiral in Japan, the Biennale de la danse de Lyon, at Sadler’s Wells  Theatre in London, the Faena Art Center in Buenos Aires, of fig-2 at  ICA, London, at the Festival d’Avignon, the Festival d’Automne à Paris,  Montpellier Danse, ImpulsTanz in Vienna, deSingel in Antwerp, the Teatro  de la Ribera in Buenos Aires, at the Panorama Festival of Rio de  Janeiro, at the Centre National de la danse in Pantin, SESC in Sao Paulo  and most recently at Kyoto Experiment, the Kyoto International  Performing Arts Festival in October 2018.

Source: Company's website

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