Skip to main content
Back to search
  • Add to playlist

Sylphides

Sylphides

Sylphides

The Sylphides (Sylphs) are mythical creatures, symbols of beauty, intermediaries between the living and the dead whose diaphanous appearance has been a source of fascination to writers and choreographers, inspiring several ballets, including the one by Michel Fokine danced by Vaslav Nijinsky. This source serves to both dress up bodies and to make a radical break with its classical point of reference. Indeed, like Pâquerette, Sylphides is above all a choreography of the possibility of movement – of its revelation, its advent. A choreography in which movement is not a given but the result of a journey, an experience that gives rise to a new organism, new possibilities of inhabiting it and making it move. The metaphorical power of this work no doubt stems from the paradoxes that it reveals with regard to the very idea of dance: sealed in black latex sacks, where moving and breathing are restricted to a vital minimum, the performers display vulnerable, lethargic bodies; all that remains visible is the rhythmic breathing that shapes the latex like a second skin. Pure sculptural images, vitrified vanities in a sort of fictional eternity, they become surfaces upon which various images are projected: mortury mask, futuristic mummies evoking interstellar travellers, as well as a strange sado-masochistic ceremony.

The process to which they subject their bodies with their hypnotic plasticity symbolises a sloughing, a transmutation that is both physical and metaphysical. A ceremony of passage and parable of renewal, from inertia to movement, Sylphides marks a threshold in the work of Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud: a zone of transit towards another form of dance, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.

Bengolea, Cecilia

Born in Buenos-Aires, Cecilia Bengolea studied urban dance forms, before to pursue studies in anthropological dances with Eugenio Barba, as well as Philosophy and Art History at the University of Buenos Aires. In 2001, she moved to Paris and followed the training Ex.e.r.c.e. directed by Mathilde Monnier in Montpellier.
In dialogue with Levi Strauss’s œuvre Tristes tropiques, Cecilia Bengolea co-directed two videos in 2011: La Beauté (tôt) vouée à se défaire with Donatien Veisman and Cri de Pilaga with Juliette Bineau. As a dancer, choreographer and performance artist, Cecilia Bengolea perceives dance and performance as ‘animated sculpture’ and welcomes the fact that these forms allow her to become both ‘object and subject at the same time’.

In 2016, Bengolea was commissioned by the ICA for London Art Night 2016 to present a video installation into holographic mirrors at Covent Garden Market and perform an outdoor participatory dancehall practice in the historical West Piazza of Covent Garden with ballerina Erika Miyauichi and dancehall artist Damion BG Dancerz. Bengolea also works with artists Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Monika Gintersdorfer, Knut Klassen as well as Jamaican Dancehall artists such as Joan Mendy and Damion BG dancerz. In collaboration with Jeremy Deller (UK), she co-directed the film RythmAssPoetry (rap) commissioned by the Biennale de Lyon 2015. Their second film, Bombom’s Dream, shot in Jamaica in 2016, commissioned by Hayward Gallery London and Sao Paulo Biennial 2016.

Source: The company Vlovajob Pru 's website

More information

vlovajobpru.com

Chaignaud, François

After graduating in 2003 from the CNSMD of Paris, François Chaignaud has  collaborated with numerous choreographers (Alain Buffard, Boris  Charmatz, Emmanuelle Huynh, Gilles Jobin). Since the creation of his  first piece in 2004, he has taken up a multiplicity of roles as dancer,  choreographer, singer, actor, historian, and cabaret artist. His  work—which weaves the aspiration for dance of a comprehensive expression  delving into the porosity and potential of bodies—is early on  characterized by the singing and dance articulation (Думи мої, 2013). Degreed in history, he nourishes his art with in-depth research. The historical depth reflects in his own pieces  as well as in the numerous collaborations he has done, and continues to  do, including with cabaret artist Jérôme Marin (Sous l’ombrelle, 2011), Marie Caroline Hominal (Duchesses, 2009), and visual artist Théo Mercier (Radio Vinci Park,  2016). Between 2005 and 2016, Chaignaud creates with Cecilia Bangolea a  series of noteworthy shows that are showed worldwide, including Pâquerettes (2005–2008), Sylphides (2009), (M)IMOSA (co-written with and performed with Trajal Harrell and Marlene Monteiro Freitas, 2011), Dub Love (2013), and DFS  (2016). In 2021, he founds the organization mandorle productions, which  supports his desire to follow a line of artistic creation marked by  numerous collaborations. With Nina Laisné, he creates Romances inciertos, un autre Orlando  (2017). The piece is presented at the 72nd edition of the Festival  d’Avignon and brings together signing and dance around androgynous  figures drawn from Spanish Baroque folklore. They are currently  conducting research around partner dances in South America.

More information : https://mandorleproductions.fr

Centre national de la danse, Réalisation

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).

Vlovajobpru

Cecilia Bengolea and François Chaignaud have been collaborating since 2005. Together, they created Pâquerette (2005-2008), Sylphides (2009), Castor et Pollux (2010), Danses Libres (2010), (M)IMOSA (with Trajal Harrell and Marlene Monteiro Freitas, 2011), altered natives’ Say Yes To Another Excess –TWERK (2012), Dub Love (2013), DFS  (2016). In 2014, the Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon commissioned them to  create a ballet for seven dancers on pointe shoes, set to Toru Takemitsu  music composition How slow the wind. In 2015, Bengolea and Chaignaud were commissioned by the Ballet de Lorraine to produce a new work set to Devoted, a music by Philip Glass. On the same year, they premiered a new piece, entitled The Lighters’ Dancehall Polyphony for Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal. The performance Sylphides,  written for vacuumed bodies in latex fetish envelopes won the Award de  la Critique de Paris in 2009 and the Young Artist Prize at Gwangju  Biennial, Korea in 2014. Over the past few years, they have presented  work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, The Kitchen in New York, Tokyos  Spiral in Japan, the Biennale de la danse de Lyon, at Sadler’s Wells  Theatre in London, the Faena Art Center in Buenos Aires, of fig-2 at  ICA, London, at the Festival d’Avignon, the Festival d’Automne à Paris,  Montpellier Danse, ImpulsTanz in Vienna, deSingel in Antwerp, the Teatro  de la Ribera in Buenos Aires, at the Panorama Festival of Rio de  Janeiro, at the Centre National de la danse in Pantin, SESC in Sao Paulo  and most recently at Kyoto Experiment, the Kyoto International  Performing Arts Festival in October 2018.


Source: Company's website

En savoir plus : vlovajobpru.com

Sylphides

Artistic direction / Conception : Cecilia Bengolea et François Chaignaud

Interpretation : François Chaignaud, Erika Miyauchi, Elisa Yvelin et Valeria Lanzara

Artistic consultancy / Dramaturgy : Berno Odo Polzer

Lights : Erik Houllier

Costumes : Sothean Nhieim

Duration : 48 minutes

Our videos suggestions
02:55

Relâche

  • Add to playlist
03:04

Lobby

Zebiri, Moncef (France)

  • Add to playlist
15:34

Cinderella

Malandain, Thierry (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:58

Impair - focus

Brabant, Jérôme (Reunion)

  • Add to playlist
14:31

DéBaTailles [transmission 2015]

Plassard, Denis (France)

  • Add to playlist
24:23

Triton (audiodescription)

  • Add to playlist
04:00

Tschägg

Eidenbenz, Lucie (France)

  • Add to playlist
04:52

Commedia

Carlson, Carolyn (France)

  • Add to playlist
10:54

Carolyn Carlson et Michel Portal

Carlson, Carolyn (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:18

Under my skin

Tompkins, Mark (France)

  • Add to playlist
04:56

Altered Natives' Say Yes to Another Excess - TWERK

Bengolea, Cecilia (France)

  • Add to playlist
04:26

Думи мої - Dumy Moyi

Chaignaud, François (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:10

Et mon coeur a vu à foison

Richard, Alban (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:02

Lointain

Richard, Alban (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:57

Let me change your name

Ahn, Eun-Me (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:31

Sleeping Beauty

Petipa, Marius (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:37

La barque sacrée

Carlson, Carolyn (France)

  • Add to playlist
02:11

Improvisation Carolyn Carlson et Michel Portal

Carlson, Carolyn (France)

  • Add to playlist
03:51

Steppe

Carlson, Carolyn (France)

  • Add to playlist
Our themas suggestions

Vlovajobpru company

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

40 years of dance and music

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

The “Nouvelle Danse Française” of the 1980s

In France, at the beginning of the 1980s, a generation of young people took possession of the dancing body to sketch out  their unique take on the world. 

Parcours

fr/en/

When reality breaks in

How does choreographic works are testimonies of the world? Does the contemporary artist is the product of an era, of its environment, of a culture?

Parcours

fr/en/

Dance and performance

 Here is a sample of extracts illustrating burlesque figures in Performances.

Parcours

fr/en/

The BNP Paribas Foundation

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Pantomimes

Presentation of Pantomimes in the different types of dance.

Parcours

fr/en/

Dance and visual arts

Dance and visual arts have often been inspiring for each other and have influenced each other. This Parcours can not address all the forms of their relations; he only tries to show the importance of plastic creation in some choreographies.

Parcours

fr/en/

A Numeridanse Story

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

La part des femmes, une traversée numérique

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

A Rite of Passage

Classical, telluric, shamanic, revolutionary? On May 29th, 1913, the first performance of Nijinski's "Rite of Spring" made such a scandal. This webdoc tells the story of this key work which inspired so many artists.

Webdoc

fr/en/

Write the movement

A myriad of methods have been invented for analysing dance and putting it into perspective and for accompanying the ‘tool’ that is essential to its memory, the dancer’s body. This webdoc presents the challenges of movement notation.

Webdoc

fr/en/

Why do I dance ?

Social dances, anti-establishment, protest dances, rhythms or identities, rituals or pleasures... There are a myriad of reasons for dancing and a myriad of points of view. A webdoc to discover, enhanced with extracts from performances and accounts from amateurs... all the right reasons for dancing!

Webdoc

fr/en/

Käfig, portrait of a company

Webdoc

fr/en/

Artistic Collaborations

Panorama of different artistic collaborations, from « couples » of choreographers to creations involving musicians or plasticians

Parcours

fr/en/

Hip hop / Influences

This Course introduce to what seems to be Hip Hop’s roots.

Parcours

fr/en/

Scenic space

A dance performance takes place in a defined spatial area ... or not. This course helps to understand the occupation of the stage space in dance.

Parcours

fr/en/

Bagouet Collection

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

The national choreographic centres

Exposition virtuelle

fr/en/

Hip hop enters the French arts scenes

Parcours

fr/en/
By accessing the website, you acknowledge and accept the use of cookies to assist you in your browsing.
You can block these cookies by modifying the security parameters of your browser or by clicking onthis link.
I accept Learn more