A time of contemplation in front of two virtual panoramas, in which a continuum of actions, abandons, comings and goings, create the landscape. In a flow of becalmed movements, the strangely adolescent and twin bodies of the dancers extricate themselves, emerge and strain towards a precarious vertical. They hurl insults at each other and tell a story that exists between them. Panning:  they make a scene, spread out, sway, pushed or gathered by a pneumatic impulse of changing and unusual tonalities, and sometimes crash and fail.  This is rock. In the image of the wave…It is a polyphonic suite of surge and undertow, a process of repetition, inquiry and alteration, a time when it might be possible to experience “us”. “Wave 03” is also a fiction, a scenario freely interpreted and rewritten in dance, video and music. It is an immersion in a plastic system which is inventing different ritual. 

Source: Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie

“They made desperate efforts to pull back together, the better to show their differences. Only in a spirit of contradiction did they cynically believe that they could find each other. They didn't speak to each other. They observed. Maybe   they sent messages, grimaced enigmas addressed to each other from afar. Witnesses who believed them to be brother and sister sometimes acted as mediators. That added a piquancy, and incomprehension. One day, when it was very windy, he challenged her to a race over slippery ground along the seashore. She didn't want to. She didn't like the waves as their violent undertow brought back terrible memories for her. But nevertheless, she accepted. Midway through the race, she fell. He didn't laugh, didn't crow his victory. He took the defeat upon himself; he didn't want to lose her. He helped her up, feigned a fall and lay there on the wet ground. She watched him do it, then, in turn, helped him up. They said nothing. They shared just a vague certainty that this was what had to happen to them in the end. After all, the elements would soon see to it that they were separated.”

Source: Hervé Robbe

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