Four performers, four backgrounds, four generations. Catherine Legrand, Jean-Christophe Paré, Yann Cardin and Vera Gorbacheva were invited by Hervé Robbe for the Fondation Royaumont's Choreographic Program: they worked together to create a combination of their own writing styles. In the light and unexpected form of a dialogue of soli, each artist "remains the author of his or her presence", while lending themselves to porous listening and sensitive interaction with their accomplices. They are accompanied, according to their own singular choices, by the romantic music of Schubert or by the noisy, gestural music of composer Jérôme Combier, with the help of two musicians from the Cairn Ensemble. Initiated during the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, "Sollicitudes" reaffirms the urgency of confronting our imaginations. To this musical and dance project, "wardrobe surgeon" Jeanne Viceria contributes costumes composed of removable textiles that, like exoskeletons, shape bodies in constant metamorphosis, to accompany this journey within ourselves and with others.

Source: programme of the CND

Born in Lille in 1961. After studying architecture for a few years, Hervé Robbe set his sights on dance. He was principally trained at Mudra, Maurice Béjart's school in Brussels. He began his performing career dancing the neo-classical repertoire, then went on to work with various modern dance makers.

In 1987 he founded his company: le Marietta secret.

The course of his career is clearly founded on a constant renewal of his choreographic writing. Supported by loyal artistic collaborators, his work has become increasingly sophisticated over the years, associating the dance presence with visual, sound and technological worlds. His projects, polysemic works, take many forms: frontal performance, ambulatory shows and installations.

The place of the audience, its presence and view is decisive; the stage space is regularly called into question.

His arrival at the CCN (National choreographic Centre) of Le Havre Haute-Normandie offered more opportunities for his research.

In 1999 he composed his autobiographical solo Polaroïd. Within it, video images of places associated with his childhood appear and coexist with an uninterrupted physical display.

In 2000 he explored the theme of home with Permis de construire – Avis de Démolition, a diptych consisting of an installation and a performance. He went on to tackle the theme of the garden in 2002 with Des Horizons Perdus.

In a world constructed with screens – virtual containers for the body, evokers of death – in the duet REW he engaged in a dialogue between man and woman on the theme of suicide. In 2004, with the group piece Mutating Score, he returned to the idea of the performance area being a common space occupied by both audience and dancers. This installation-dance, while reaffirming this conviction about the force of movement, marks the culmination of a project on the use of new technologies, which are integrated into the show in real time.

In 2006 he designed the installation So long as baby...love and songs will be, a kind of manifesto of the preoccupations which underlie his work. The device is a containing structure in which the audience is invited to watch and listen to the dancer-singers present on screen. Hervé Robbe distanced himself from the stage with this, then returned to it in the works Là, on y danse in 2007 and Next days in 2010.

While maintaining his personal approach in his own productions, he regularly accepts commissions from the Opéra de Lyon, the Gulbenkian Ballet, the CNSMDP (Paris Conservatoire) and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Source: Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie

Jérôme Combier est compositeur et directeur artistique de l’ensemble Cairn. Diplômé du CNSM de Paris dans les classes de composition, d’orchestration et d’analyse musicale, il étudie ensuite l'informatique musicale à l’Ircam (avec Philippe Leroux) où il travaille régulièrement (Stèles d’air, Gone, Dawnlight). Pensionnaire à la Villa Médicis, voyage au Japon (Akiyoshidaï international Art Village), au Kazakhstan et en Ouzbékistan (conservatoires de Tashkent et d’Almaty). En 2008 il est professeur de composition à l’Abbaye de Royaumont. En 2005, il imagine Vies silencieuses avec le peintre Raphaël Thierry et en 2008, l’installation Noir gris  avec le vidéaste Pierre Nouvel pour l’exposition Beckett au Centre Georges Pompidou. Il écrit Stèles d’air pour l’Ensemble Intercontemporain dans le cadre du Festival d’Automne à Paris. Sa musique est jouée au Louvre dans le cadre du cycle « Le Louvre invite Pierre Boulez ». En 2011, avec Pierre Nouvel et Bertrand Couderc, il adapte pour la scène le roman de W.G. Sebald , Austerlitz, crée au Festival d’Aix-en-Provence et à l'Opéra de Lille . En 2012, il écrit l’opéra Terre et cendres avec Atiq Rahimi, commande de l'Opéra de Lyon. Il donne des masterclass à l'Université de Berkeley, à l'université Unesp de Sao Paulo et McGill de Montreal. La musique de Jérôme Combier est publiée aux éditions Lemoine et Verlag Neue Musik (Berlin) et enregistrée par les labels Motus et Æon.

Jérôme Combier obtient le prix Nouveau Talents de la SACD. Il est enseignant en création sonore et musicale à l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de Paris-Cergy