On September 24th 2008, at the Angers CNDC (National Choreographic Development Centre), the choreographer and dancer Boris Charmatz created La Danseuse malade, in partnership with the actress Jeanne Balibar. From June 2007 up to the eve of the dress rehearsal, Sima Khatami followed the work process resulting in this piece based on the writings of Tatsumi Hijikata (1928-1986), the founder, with Kazuo Ohno, of Butoh or the “obscure body” dance.

 More than the actual piece, of which the film only shows, in no particular order, a few scenes in the course of elaboration, more than the actual process – though he introduces us into its intimacy, with warm-ups, discussions, attempts and rehearsals – it is Hijikata’s universe and his thinking that Bonhomme de vent discovers. Yet, by having his calligraphy texts read aloud by Ayumi Morita or carried by the voices of Charmatz and Balibar, by inserting, between the work images, large extracts from Nombril et la Bombe Atomique (Navel and A-Bomb) (1960), a short film by Eikoh Hosoe produced with Hijikata’s participation, Sima Khatami’s film remains faithful to Boris Charmatz’s intention for this project: “My idea is not to make Butoh from these hallucinatory texts as they already bear Butoh inside them […] But that the strength of his writings, which must be as though offered up to reading, leave us free in the very gesture of carrying them”.

The sources of this duet, pairing together Boris Charmatz and Jeanne  Balibar, are translations of texts by Tatsumi Hijikata, founder of  Butoh, a contemporary Japanese dance form developed in the 1960s. “La  danseuse malade” is not an adaptation of a text by Hijikata, nor is it a  dramatization of his texts, but rather a parallel creation which echoes  the power of the Japanese writer, just as “Con forts fleuve” (1999)  worked with John Giorno's texts. The presence of a truck on the stage  alludes to the machines in “Régi” (2005). Now, however, the  machine-vehicle constrains and confines the body. In the selected  extract, the multiplication of projected images on different scales is  evocative of one of the foundational elements of Butoh: its relation to  the cosmos. Like Russian dolls, the macrocosm always mirrors the  microcosm. The living being is located in-between: both as a miniature  of the larger and a big version of the smaller universe. By using video  images projected onto the surface of the vehicle, the play of images and  scales becomes complex: the video image offers a synchronized and  enlarged vision of the interior space of the vehicle which is itself in  motion, rotating round its axis on the stage. Having observed the stage  occupied with visual material, attention shifts to the confined space of  the driver's cabin, an intimate place and the site of a micro-event.

Source : Boris Charmatz

More information : borischarmatz.org

Born on January 3rd 1973, in Chambéry, France

Dancer, choreographer, and director of  Terrain, Boris Charmatz subjects dance to formal constraints which  redraw the field of possibilities. The stage is a notepad where to draft  concentrated, organic concepts in order to observe the chemical  reactions, intensities, and tensions engendered by their encounter.

During 2009 - 2018 he is the director of Musée de la danse / Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne.
He is the author of a series of landmark shows, from Aatt enen tionon (1996) to 10000 gestes  (2017), in addition to his activity as a performer and improviser (in  collaboration with Médéric Collignon, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and  Tino Sehgal).
As an associate artist of the 2011 edition of the Avignon Theatre Festival, Boris Charmatz created enfant.  Performed at the Cour d’Honneur at the Palais des Papes, the piece  involved 26 children and 9 adult dancers. It was restaged at the  Volksbühne in 2018 with a group of Berlin children. Invited to the MoMA  in 2013, Boris Charmatz staged Musée de la danse: Three Collective Gestures,  a three-part program performed at the museum over the course of three  weeks. Following an invitation in 2012, Boris Charmatz was once again  hosted by Tate Modern in London in 2015, where he presented If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse? The show included alternate versions of the choreographic projects À bras-le-corps; Levée des conflits; manger; Roman Photo; expo zéro; and 20 Dancers for the XX Century. That same year, Boris Charmatz opened the dance season at the National Opera in Paris with 20 Dancers for the XX Century,  and invited 20 dancers from the Ballet to perform twentieth-century  solo parts in public spaces at the Palais Garnier. In May 2015 he  premieres Fous de danse, an invitation to live dance in all its  forms from noon until midnight. Further editions of this choreographic  assembly bringing together professional dancers and amateurs, take place  in Rennes in 2016 and 2018; Brest, Berlin and Paris (Festival  d’Automne) follow in 2017.
During 2017-2018 Boris Charmatz is associate artiste of Volksbühne Berlin where he presents danse de nuit  (2016), 10000 gestes (2017), A Dancer’s Day  (2017) and enfant (2018).

End of 2018 Boris Charmatz leaves Musée de la danse / Centre  chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne and for the occasion  creates La Ruée at Théâtre National de Bretagne, a collective performance inspired by the book Histoire mondiale de la France,  written under the direction of Patrick Boucheron.
In January 2019 he launches Terrain, association established in the  Region Hauts-de-France and in partnership with the phénix, scène  nationale of Valenciennes, Opéra de Lille and Maison de la Culture  d’Amiens. Boris Charmatz is also associate artist of Charleroi danse  (Belgium) for three years (2018-2021).
In the summer of 2019 Zürcher Theater Spektakel gives Boris Charmatz carte blanche to take over the festival site on the lake. terrain | Boris Charmatz : Un essai à ciel ouvert. Ein Tanzgrund für Zürich   becomes the first test of his project Terrain : a green choreographic  site without roof and walls, an architecture of bodies during three  weeks, every day and under the open sky, including public warm-ups,  workshops for children, amateur and professional dancers, performances  and a symposium.
In 2020, the Festival d’Automne à Paris proposes the Portrait Boris Charmatz with works from his repertoire and new projects : La Ruée  (2018), (sans titre)  (2000) by Tino Sehgal, La Fabrique (2020), Aatt enen tionon (1996), 20 danseurs pour le XXe siècle et plus encore  (2012, 2020), boléro 2 (1996) & étrangler le temps (2009) and 10000 gestes (2017). In this framework he creates La Ronde   for the closing event of Grand Palais, collective performance of 12  hours and subject of a film and a documentary for France Télévisions.
In June 21, he orchestrates the groupe performance Happening Tempête for the opening of Grand Palais Éphémère. In July, he opens the Manchester International Festival with Sea Change,  a dance piece with 150 amateurs and professional dancers. In November  he creates and interprets the entirely whistled solo SOMNOLE.
In September 2022, Boris Charmatz will be the new director of  Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, to launch, with Terrain, a new  project between France and Germany. Since August 2022, Boris Charmatz is  the new director of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, to launch, with  Terrain, a new project between France and Germany. In September 2023, he  creates with Tanztheater Wuppertal Ensemble his new piece Liberté Cathédrale.

Charmatz is the author of several books, including Entretenir: à propos d’une danse contemporaine (Centre national de la danse / Les presses du reel, 2003), co-authored with Isabelle Launay; “Je suis une école” (Editions les Prairies Ordinaires, 2009), a work that retraces the adventure with Bocal; and Emails 2009–2010  (Les presses du réel, in partnership with the Musée de danse, 2013),  co-authored with Jérôme Bel. In 2017, MoMa New York as part of its  series Modern Dance, publishes the monography Boris Charmatz,  directed by Janevski and with contributions by Gilles Amalvi, Bojana  Cvejić, Tim Etchells, Adrian Heathfield, Catherine Wood...
His projects initiate various cinematographic realisations, among them Les Disparates  (2000), directed by César Vayssié ; Horace-Bénédict (2001), by Dimitri Chamblas et Aldo Lee ; Une lente introduction (2007) by Boris Charmatz et Aldo Lee ; Levée (2014) by Boris Charmatz et César Vayssié ; Daytime Movements (2016), by Boris Charmatz et Aernout Mik ; TANZGRUND (2021), by César Vayssié ; étrangler le temps (2021) by Boris Charmatz and Aldo Lee.

Source and more information: https://www.borischarmatz.org/

Sima Khatami, born in 1977 in iran, living in paris since 2002.

after finishing a theatre formation in city-theatre and graduating from fine art university in tehran in 2000, she joined l’Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts of paris by Christian Boltanski mentorship in 2005 . She created more than thirty movies and multimedia art installations, and collaborated with Pierre Droulers, Christian Boltanski, Boris Charmatz, Emmanuelle Huynh, Meg Stuart, Dumb Type (Japan), Skit, Sweet & Tender. She explored several aspects of video art through installations, shows (where she examined the relationship between body movement and video art), and several short movies and documentaries.

Source : Sima Khatami

More information :

http://simakhatami.blogspot.fr/