Les trois contents

Julie Desprairies et son équipe ont travaillé régulièrement à la Manufacture nationale de Sèvres à la collecte des gestes de fabrication de la porcelaine et des formes de corps produites par les céramistes, ces fameux « biscuits » de Sèvres.

From 2006 to 2008, Julie Desprairies and her team regularly worked at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres to learning about porcelain manufacturing gestures and shapes of bodies produced by the ceramists, those famous Sevres “biscuits”: small pastoral, mythological or theatrical scenes in white, unglazed porcelain that built the reputation of the Maison in the 18th century. The materials and tools it uses and the furniture and lighting of its workshops make the Manufacture de Sèvres a photogenic and potentially fictional setting. 

A hallucination or a choreographic drift? Has a delicate impregnation taken place over the centuries, an identification of the craftspeople with their objects? The ceramists at work seem to be moving biscuits, their gestures conjuring up the postures of their models.

Over the months, the workers at the Manufacture passed on to the dancers their precise and meticulous gestures for glazing, soaking, pelleting, retrimming… Arnold Pasquier danced with them before delivering a film on the patient appropriation of the movements of this exceptional place by the choreographer and her three dancers.

Les Trois Contents, the title of which is that of a biscuit sculptured by Etienne Maurice Falconet and taken from a popular play, is shown in full.

Source : Cie Desprairies