To perpetuate the work of Andy De Groat: this is the mission that the  young Centre chorégraphique international de nulle part (CCINP andy de  Groat) has set itself. Red notes is the first show that the group has  chosen to revive, twenty years after its final performances. Created in  1977, it is one of the emblematic pieces of Andy De Groat’s “American  period”, so much so that he named his company Red Notes after moving to  France a few years later. Danced to texts by Gertrude Stein and a score  by Philip Glass, Red notes attests to Andy De Groat’s  affinities with the post-modern and minimalist movement. While its  structure is rigorous, the piece mixes amateurs and professionals, and  young and old, as is often the case in the choreographer’s repertoire.  To revive Red notes, the CCINP tasked a research group to  examine the archive resources (notes, notations, photos, videos, and so  on) –and to rediscover the “more natural body, free of narrative  constraints” intended by Andy De Groat. The piece is presented as part  of a programme comprising Fan dance and Rope dance translations.

Source: programme of the CND

(1947-2019)

Andy De Groat was born in 1947 in the United States into a family of Dutch, Italian, French, German and English origins. Whilst studying at the New York School of Fine Art in 1967, he met the director Robert Wilson. He joined his troupe as a dancer, then as a choreographer for all the productions from Deafman Glance in 1971, A Letter for Queen Victoria in 1974 to Einstein on the Beach in 1976, created for the Avignon Festival.
In 1981, he received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation in New York for his choreographic research.
He created new works in succession for red notes, including several for Jean Guizerix, Wilfride Piollet, Jean-Christophe Paré, the Choreographic Research Group of the Opera of Paris (GRCOP), the Scala in Milan, Ris et Danceries, the Ballet du Nord (Roubaix) and Wah Loo Tin Tin Co, a Montauban-based company of young performers.

Today, his work totals over sixty creations that have been presented in around twenty countries and periodically goes back to questioning the repertoire and the heritage of dance.

His company has worked regularly on lyrical productions since 1988, in particular on "The Magic Flute" (Mozart), with Robert Wilson at the Opera Bastille, Paris, "The Rake's Progress" (Stravinsky), with Alfredo Arias for the Aix-en-Provence Festival of Lyric Art and at the Operas of Lyon, Gênes and Montpellier, "Aida" (Verdi) and Klaus Michael Grüber at the Amsterdam Opera.

Source : website of the Centre national de la danse (CND, Pantin)

Stéphane Caroff is Manager of the Image Division at the Centre national de la danse in Pantin.