A choreographic extract remodelled by  the perfomers of the groups attendees at the national encounter of the   

“Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme 2023/2024 (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).   Transmission by Marion Bastien, Aurélie Camus-Dalle, Estelle Corbière, Vincent Lenfant. Coordinator: Marion Bastien

Presented on 16 June 2024, Le Manège de Reims.

The piece when it was created

Die Welle (La Vague)

Firstly produced 1930

Choreography: Albrecht Knust

Work for 64 performers

Le projet

”The Wave”, created in Germany in 1930 by Albrecht Knust, one of Rudolf Laban’s earliest collaborators, is a choral dance for sixty-four people. Through waves, ebbs and flows, and ripples, this dance invites us to take part in a collective experience of interrelated  listening and tuning by using simple movements such as walking, skipping and pliés. 

The performers of the national encounter worked in two different groups to perform La Vague. 

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 

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