During her trip to Canada in April 2017, Olivia Grandville met Quebec artist Françoise Sullivan, who was not only a painter and sculptor but also a dancer and choreographer. Sullivan, who joined the «Automatistes» movement in 1948, was also a signatory of the manifesto of Refus global, a foundational text of the Canadian political and artistic movement. 

For Olivia Grandville, who is passionate about the history of 20th-century avant-gardes, this encounter appeared as a serendipitous twist of fate and echoed all the work she did at the Cabaret Discrépant on Lettrism, a contemporary movement

aligned with Refus global and sharing similar artistic concerns.

Françoise Sullivan is best known in the field of choreography for two creations that are among the first filmed choreographic works in the history of dance: Eté (1947) and Danse dans la neige (1948). 

These two plays were part of an unfinished project that was intended to cover the four seasons.

The films were lost and all that remains today are seventeen black and white photos of Danse dans la neige. The irony of history choosing to render immortal the fragile trace of a spontaneous impulse.

Based on these seventeen static and fragmented testimonies, as well as the words of this ninety-six-year-old artist, transcribed by Olivia Grandville, the project Argentique is developed. To (re)give birth to movement in a manner much like a photographic revelation. To create a ghostly dance. To conjure up the memory of a dance in the present and reinvent it.

A counterpoint to À l’Ouest, Argentique is the second instalment following Olivia Grandville’s research trip to Canada and the United States in spring 2016.

Trained first in ballet, Olivia Grandville resigned from the Paris Opéra Ballet to join the Compagnie Bagouet in 1988. For more than twenty years she has developed her own work, most focusing on the question of language and phrasing, be it musical, verbal or choreographic.

In 2010, she created Une semaine d’art en Avignon (A week of Art in Avignon) with Léone Nogarède and Catherine Legrand, under the auspices of the Sujets à Vif section of the Avignon Festival, then Le Cabaret discrépant, the result of research carried out on lettrist choreographic scores, created and presented at the 2011 Avignon Festival and then at the Théâtre de la Colline in Paris. During the 2013  2014 season, she created a number of solos: L’invité mystère (The mystery guest) based on a text by Grégoire Bouiller; Le Grand Jeu, a solo described as «under the influence»; and Toute ressemblance ou similitude (Any resemblance or similarity) based on a text by Aurore Jacob. She then created a number of larger scale works, notably Foules (Crowds), a creation for 100 amateur dancers, in 2015, prefiguring her next work, Combat de Carnaval (Carnival Combat) and Carême (Lent) for 10 dancers. She has been an Associated Artist at the Lieu unique since 2017, where she created A l’Ouest (In the west) in May 2018, channeling her own study trip to Canada and the USA to research First Nations dances.

Grandville is also a dancer and improvisation specialist and is regularly invited to work on the implementation of projects, notably by the choreographer Boris Charmatz (Roman-Photo, Levée des conflits, 20 danseurs pour le 20èmesiècle) and César Vayssié (Coproud)…

 César Vayssié produces films and performances. At the intersection of visual arts and dance, his work sidesteps all classification. His  artist status is emblematic of a work permanently trying to find  itself, starting from intra and extra cinematographic influences. After graduating from Beaux-Arts (art school), he joined the Académie de France-Villa Medici in Rome as a filmmaker. Alongside UFE(UNFILMÉVÈNEMENT),  he created UFE performance at MuCEM - Actoral 15. During FIAC 2016 in  Paris Vayssié premiered his piece COPROUDUCTION a series of improvised  duets with experienced performers.

Source :  César Vayssié

More information :
https://www.cesarvayssie.com/

Mille Plateaux has been home to artist and choreographer Olivia Grandville's project since January 2022. Mille Plateaux aims to be a space for creation, experimentation and artistic innovation; it wishes to reflect the vitality and diversity of the contemporary scene, and to be a home for choreographic cultures in the broadest sense. The National Choreographic Centres are major players in the vitality and structuring of choreographic creation in France and constitute one of the labels of the French Ministry of Culture.