An extract remodelled by the group Danse contemporaine Maison pop, coordinator Élodie Escarmelle,  as part of Danse en amateur et répertoire programme 2018/2019 (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing). Transmission by Marie-Charlotte Chevalier. Presented 25 May 2019, place de la Pointe, Pantin.

L’œuvre à la création

Die Waage [La Balance] 

Firstly produced: ca. 1930

Choreography: Albrecht Knust

Dance work for two groups and one leader

Original duration: 8 minutes

The group

Danse contemporaine Maison Populaire (Montreuil, Île-de-France)

This contemporary dance group, comprising amateur adults aged between twenty-three and fifty-nine years old, who get together at the Maison Populaire in Montreuil, unites several generations around choreographic practice. These workshops, led by Élodie Escarmelle, trained in Laban notation, focus on improvisation and creation work and, as such, transmit the fundamentals of dance through experience and exploration.

The project

The Maison Populaire workshop was attracted to Albrecht Knust’s famous choral dance, Die Waage [The Scales] for the way in which it mobilized the group as an organic entity. In the choral system – which is based on simple notions such as gravity, body lateralization and selected observation of its different parts in time and space -, the group takes precedence over the individual, creating a harmonious ensemble moving in a single impetus. The group, accompanied by Marie-Charlotte Chevalier and Élodie Escarmelle, both Laban practitioners, will have the opportunity to pursue its research work on choreology and to address all aspects of these social and collective teachings of dance.

Albrecht Knust, a dancer in folk dance groups during his youth, joined the company of German choreographer and theoretician Rudolf Laban in 1922. Knust, marked by Laban’s system of thought – which sought to rethink the role of the body in modern-day society -, devoted his life to perfecting and to transmitting Laban’s choreology, which was used to accurately transcribe movement as graphical signs (highly-sophisticated system for writing movement, choreology), firstly at the Laban School in Hamburg, where he was Head from 1924 to 1934, then, from 1951, at the Essen Folkwangschule. His numerous writings such as his Abstract of Laban choreology led to the development of this writing system around the world. As a choreographer in his own right, his works such as The Wave and The Scales focus on the principles of choreutic composition, intended for experimenting and observing the dynamics and transformations of the body in three-dimensional space.

Source: program of the 13th rencontre Danse en amateur et répertoire, 25-26 May 2019 

Film director, Ivan Chaumeille, has worked with choreographer Dominique Brun a long time, most notably in the production of + One (2014), a creative documentary scheduled as part of the festival “Vidéodanse”, in the editing of which Rafaël Gubitsch participated; he filmed and edited two versions of Afternoon of a faun, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinski for the film Le Faune -un film ou la fabrique de l’archive. He also carried out interviews, and devised and formulated the ROM and video dimensions of the DVD (2007). He shot video sequences for the show Medea-Stimmen by Virginie Mirbeau, created at Festival Les Météores CNN du Havre (2008). With a background in philosophy, he produced a creative documentary entitled Avec François Châtelet, un voyage différentiel (2010) for the collection “À Contre-temps” in co-production with Groupe Galactica, Mosaïque films and Canal 15.

Amateur Dance and Repertory is a companion program to amateur practice beyond the dance class and the technical learning phase. Intended for groups of amateur dancers, it opens a space of sharing for those who wish to deepen a practice and a knowledge of the dance in relation to its history.

Laurent Barré
 Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
 Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
 +33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr

Source: CN D

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme