Marceline Lartigue
Daughter of Pierre Lartigue, one of the first writers to have written on Cage and Cunningham, and Bernadette Bonis, critic for Danser magazine, Marceline Lartigue was trained by Suzon Holzer, Hideyuki Yano, Lucinda Childs and Merce Cunningham in New York (1976 -1980). Dancer in Karole Armitage’s (she performed Gogo Ballerina), Karine Saporta (1984 – 1987) and Susan Buirge (2000 – 2003), she created the Szerelem company and wrote between 1989 and 2008 some twenty pieces which, according to critics , have more to do with ascetic ritual than entertainment: L’orage d’une robe qui s’abat (1998), L’Antichambre des contes (1999), L’Improbable (1996) and Centaures (1997). In Erzsebet (1988), she evokes the legendary and bloody figure of the Hungarian countess Elisabeth Bathory of Ecsed. Other historical portraits will follow: Lola Montes (1992), Gilles de Rais (1995). She also created portraits of performers inspired by ancient painting, such as that of the dancer Michel Barthome, Figures (1994) or the dancer and friend Marjolaine Zurfluh, Le Portrait de Marjolaine (1992), solo on the notion of ecstasy , which will be revived at the request and for the star dancer of the Opera Jean-Yves Lormeau under the title Prédelle (1995). This dance tableau inspired by the “polychrome baroque statuary of Spain and Italy” (René Sirvin), initiated a self-reflection on dance at the Opéra-Comique, ten years before Jérôme Bel’s Véronique Doisneau. Her self-portrait, entitled Tabou (1993) is inspired by the character of Salomé. For Marie-Christine Vernay, Marceline Lartigue’s dance is “regulated by an inner force, a deep breath and an external attraction”.
In 2003, Marceline Lartigue initiated a cycle of research around rituals in Benin, Ghana and Senegal and conducted training and collaborations in these countries. For this research, she won the “Villa Médicis Hors les murs” program (2006) and the scholarship for innovative choreographic scriptures from the French Ministry of Culture in 2008 – 2009. She explained : “It is thanks to the observation of danced forms that govern ritual ceremonies that I transmit and share what can constitute new creative tools for artists, performers and choreographers today”. She resided for 6 years in Benin. In 2011, she signed a new portrait for the Beninese dancer Marcel Gbeffa: Marcel, Ici et Maintenant. She performs Asansan dances in Cotonou and Abomey, patchwork dances developed from the identity of performers, in partnership with the Conservatory of Ceremonial and Royal Dances of Abomey.
She died in the middle of the street from a ruptured aneurysm in 2018, at the age of 57.
Source : Raphaël de Gubernatis, « Marceline Lartigue, femme artiste flamboyante », 2 mai 2018
Nicolas Villodre, « Adieu Marceline », in Danser, Canal Historique
Flyer Marceline Lartigue, « Dansons maintenant ! » Antoine Tempé au Champ de Foire, Fondation Zinsou, 2011.
