The same effect animates the entire film: water flows behind a window, blurs the faces and bodies that writhe behind, causes voices to gurgle and gives a bluish hue to the various scenes. The director and choreographers propose here a colourful and amused counterpoint to the bleakness of this dull day, sung by the clear voice of Jeanne Moreau.

There is a circus side to this universe that defies the gloomy expressions, before becoming abstract in an entirely white space peppered with colourful dancers like butterflies pinned to a frame. You’ve understood: Olivier Mégaton, José Montalvo and Dominique Hervieu have forgotten the words of the song to magnify the temperament of its interpreter.

Source : Fabienne Arvers

Born in 1962 in Coutances (Normandy, France), Dominique Hervieu has had a voracious appetite for every form of movement since she was six years old. After her first love, gymnastics, she elected dance as the new object of her passion : classical dance, at first, which she practised for a dozen years, mainly with Michèle Latini; and then contemporary dance, with Peter Goss, Alwin Nicolais and Hervé Diasnas.

In 1981, she met José Montalvo and with him developed an original gestural language – fluid, rapid and precise – that would impart a singular style to their works. In 1988, their close artistic bond yielded Compagnie Montalvo-Hervieu, which performs at the leading venues in France and beyond. Ten years and five new pieces later, the duo were appointed to head the Centre Chorégraphique National de Créteil et du Val-de- Marne. Since 2000, Dominique Hervieu has co- devised all the pieces by Compagnie Montalvo- Hervieu, which ranks among the most popular and recognised contemporary-dance companies in France and abroad.

In 2000, they specially created Variation au Paradis for the opening ceremony of the Cannes International Film Festival. That year, Dominique Hervieu became artistic adviser to the Théâtre National de Chaillot and was appointed director of the venue’s youth programme. She conducted original arts-education actions, drawing on connections between dance works and artistic practices on the one hand, and on those between the arts on the other hand, in partnership with the Musée du Louvre and several other Paris institutions. She notably conceived a choreographic trail at the Louvre in 2004, attracting 5,000 spectators.

In 2001 she created "Mosaïque... Danse(s) d’une ville", a piece for 180 amateur dancers aged 15 to 85: a multicultural portrait in dance of the town of Créteil, which involved residents in the creative process. In 2002 and 2003 she devised two pieces on her own: "Intervallo Brio" at the Mettre en scène festival, a work for two virtuoso dancers, a grandfather and two little girls; and "Le Corbeau et le renard", a dance version of La Fontaine’s fable.

In 2006 she created "La Bossa Fataka" de Rameau with José Montalvo. With Montalvo she also choreographed and directed two operas : "Les Paladins", under the musical direction of William Christie of Les Arts Florissants, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (2004); and George Gershwin’s "Porgy and Bess" at the Opéra National de Lyon (2008).
Also in 2006, Dominique Hervieu created L’artde la rencontre - Cartes postales chorégraphiques for " Les Francophonies ! " festival, in conjunction with four choreographers from the Francophone world. These collaborations gave rise to 12 filmed duos and provided the material for a documentary for Arte. In June 2008, Hervieu was appointed director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot. The duo’s most recent work, "Orphée", was staged in 2010. In July that year she initiated Imaginez Maintenant, a national event to promote young artists, in conjunction with France’s High Commissioner for Youth and its Council for Artistic Creation.  

In March 2010, she was appointed by the city of Lyon and the Urban Community of Lyon, artistic director of the Biennale de la danse and the Maison de la danse de Lyon, positions she will take up on July 1, 2011.

Since 2011, Dominique Hervieu has worked for the development and influence of dance in Lyon and beyond its borders. Its programming, both cutting-edge and popular, avoids any form of aesthetic exclusion and brings together an increasingly numerous and curious audience. She leads local and international development, civic and social actions, the educational and digital component of the Maison de la Danse and the Dance Biennale, and the development of the production of national and international choreographic works.

In 2012, at the Biennale de la Danse, she initiated a policy of programming in public spaces by offering free shows for all audiences. (Recital for 40 by Mourad Merzouki (2012) and Swan Lake (2014) by Dada Masilo were presented in front of 16,000 people gathered at Place Bellecour). At the Maison de la Danse, she sets up “Nomad Houses” to get closer to different audiences and take dance “where it does not go” and throughout the territory, in remand centers , hospitals, libraries, shopping centers, museums…

In 2013, the Maison de la Danse became the supporting structure of the Resource Center for artistic and cultural education, dance and movement arts in the Rhône-Alpes region with the support of the Rectorate of the Academy of Lyon and the Ministry of Culture and Communication. Dominique Hervieu chooses artists “associated” with the Maison de la Danse who guarantee a strong artistic presence in the region. It also puts in place innovative and accessible mediation tools to raise ever wider awareness of dance, such as The Spectator's Minute, a one-minute video which presents its work and its author to the public. Under the leadership of Dominique Hervieu, Numeridanse continues its development with a 320% increase in views on its site in 3 years.

Since 2014, Dominique Hervieu has been developing the international aspect of the Dance Biennale Parade by inviting groups from major European cities (Turin and Barcelona). With the Lyon team, she exports the Lyon Biennale Parade to Turin as part of the Torino Danza festival.

In 2015, in order to share with the inhabitants of Lyon the challenges of choreographic creation, she created the Babel 8.3 project, a participatory show which brings together on stage 300 amateurs aged 4 to 95 from the 8th and 3rd arrondissements of Lyon. The show is accompanied live by musicians from the Orchester national de Lyon to scores by Mozart.

In January 2016, she obtained the “European Production Center” label for the Maison de la Danse from the Ministry of Culture and Communication to support European creation. In July 2016, Dominique Hervieu curated a day of dance in public spaces as part of San Sebastian European Capital of Culture. The same year, just after the Nice attack, she succeeded, with all the artistic and technical teams and the 5,000 participants, in maintaining the Dance Biennale Parade by transferring and readapting it, in three weeks , inside the Gerland stadium in Lyon.

En 2018, elle est la directrice artistique de la Triennale de  Yokohama Dance, Dance, Dance. Depuis 2022, elle est également directrice  de la culture au sein de l'organisme animant les jeux olympiques Paris 2024, chargé d'un programme d'animation culturelle, en parallèle de ces jeux, touchant 750 villes de France.  

The idea has all it takes to please: with the complicity of a director, a choreographer plays along by masterfully setting to dance a melody taken from the repertoire of French song, where, most often, poetry rhymes with humour and tenderness. While none of these dances resembles a video-clip supposed to illustrate the song, they are always an original choreographic proposal. A contemporary version of the old “chansons de geste” (French epic poems), they allow access, in just a few minutes, to the highly diversified universes of the choreographers. Take a song, its verses and its chorus, the interpreter’s tone of voice, the subject or the atmosphere evoked, and see what images, colours, figures and rhythms dance could give them.

Source : Fabienne Arvers