Choreography by Luc Petton
An extract remodelled by the group Présences (Charleville-Mézières), artistic manager Danièle Wuatelet, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2015) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
With ten female dancers, the group Présences, created in 1982 in Charleville-Mézières (Ardennes) by Danièle Wuatelet, testifies to a long-term commitment. Under the leadership of this specialised teacher who practices dance with passion, the interpreters participate in regional projects and present shows at the Théâtre de Charleville-Mézières in partnership with the Pôle Danse (Sedan). The group rehearses in the hall of the Maison de la culture et des loisirs Ma Bohême, in Charleville, and also works in the Laboratoire chorégraphique de Reims. 

The project
The choice of the piece Oscar is the result of the desire to take possession of a playful and sleek choreography inspired by the famous Danse des batons (Stick dance) by the German visual artist and choreographer Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943), the inventor of the Triadisches Ballett. The relationship of the body with the object deploys a fascinating variety of nuances: tactile, relational, spatial, etc. He dances and generates dance in the same movement. Two extracts were selected from the series Tasseaux to allow the participation of the ten dancers of the group. Three artists, Céline Coessens, Tuomas Lahti and Cyrille Bochew, Luc Petton’s interpreters, worked with the group. 

The choreographer
Luc Petton, a karate expert since his teenage years, discovered contemporary dance at the age of eighteen. During his years of learning, he first crossed the path of Moses Pendelton, the director of the company Pilobolus, and then that of Alwin Nikolais in 1980. An interpreter for Suzanne Linke at the Essen Folkwang Tanz Studio (Germany), he started to create his own works in 1985, the year when he set up his company with Marilén Iglesias-Breuker. In 2004, this amateur ornithologist launched into a daring undertaking by choreographing birds and dancers. La Confidence des oiseaux (2006), Swan (2012), with real swans, Light Bird (2014), with Manchurian cranes, testify to the precision and subtlety of this spectacular invitation to birds and dancers to share the stage for a most original dialogue. 

After intense practise in martial arts, Luc Petton discovered contemporary dance through Muriel Jaër, and then Moses Pendelton, director of the Pilobolus Company. In 1980, he was granted a scholarship to study in New York at Alwin Nikolaïs' and Murray Louis' Dance Theater Lab and he danced with the Robin Feld Company (contact improvisation), whilst pursuing his training with the Trisha Brown Company. From 1981 to 1984, he was involved in the Folkwang Tanz Studio in Essen, directed by Hans Zullig who, along with Jean Cébron provided him his training. Here he danced for several choreographers: Suzanne Linke, Marilén Breuker, Mitsuru Sasaki and Christine Brunel.

In 1986, he founded the Icosaèdre Company with Marilén Iglésias-Breuker, which he co-directed until 1994. During this period, he began working on his own creations, he participated in a myriad of performances and creations that embraced other artistic disciplines and other cultures, and he discovered the Intrumentarium Pilates with Dominique Dupuy who produced again the solo “En vol” for him.

In 1994, he established Le Guetteur - Luc Petton & Cie in Picardy and launched his atypical and prosperous career in the French dance scene. In 1996, he created “IF”, a trio for 2 men and 1 plank and then his work “Oscar”, inspired by the work of Oskar Schlemmer at the Bauhaus, which were performed at the Presqu'îles de Danse cultural event. In 1999, the Val-de-Marne Biennial requested his “Polemos”, a work that brings together dancers and highly-proficient karatekas.

Amateur ornithologist, with a life-long passion for birds, he embarked on this fabulous creative adventure in 2004 that conjugated dancers and living birds. Two versions emerge from this project, with the generic name of “La confidence des oiseaux”: the first, an outdoor performance, in 2005 at Art Danse Bourgogne in Dijon and at the Festival les Envies Rhônements in the Camargue region, and the second for the theatre, with a preview performance in 2006 at the Faïencerie in Creil. This theatre version continued to evolve and attained its final form in Avignon during the Hivernales Festival of 2008.

This “poetic gesture”, nourished with enthralling and passionate experimentations will soon pursue its adventure with a new creation that includes aquatic birds, swans, egrets, cormorants… and six dancers, in a stage-set that harmonizes air and water elements. This project is presented as a palimpsest of Marius Petipa's and Ivanov's "Swan Lake", enshrouded in the magical-poetic atmosphere of Ovid's "Metamorphoses"…

Source : Website of the National Choreographic Centre, Tours www.ccntours.com

More information

Company website

Last update : September 2011

From live stage images to life in images, the  director and video artist Karim Zeriahen seems to have found the  shortest way. Since the beginning of the 90s, when he worked in close  relationship with choreographer Philippe Decouflé, he learned how to put  the art of stage in motion, contemporary dance most of the time. Karim  Zeriahen then starts a fruitful collaboration with Montpellier based  choreographer Mathilde Monnier. Stop, Videlilah, day of night, short  films adapted from her stage creations. Each time, Karim Zeriahen's   camera takes over the place with movement, the body language is not  frozen but magnified. Choreographer Herman Diephuis also joins this  gallery of dancing portraits. Documentaries on figures such like Albert  Maysles or Hubert de Givenchy and from Joe Dalessandro to Paul  Morrissey, he sets a signature, a camera always in action with  confidence.

Today the director goes further with a new  project and tracks the subtle movements of the body language beyond the  physical appearance. A collection of living portraits as unique pièces  reminding us of the master portraitists of renaissance. These living  natures consists in filming the subject in a certain amount of time,  almost still, with signs of respiration, eye blinks, as if it were  posing for a painting. They are then displayed on a flat screen with a  memory card. With this collection starting, Karim Zeriahen, with his  documentary and artist vision, interrogates himself about the virtual  world filled with images. By taking a pause, and his models with him, he  questions the way we look at things, the way we look at life.

Source: Philippe Noisette 

En savoir plus: www.karimzeriahen.com

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