Maguy Marin

COURSE OF LIFE – MAGUY MARIN

There is a place of birth, other than a city. Toulouse. A place reached following a series of moves provoked by political movements in Spain. Growing up there, in France, in the early 50s. Then there was a desire to dance that was confirmed by a series of studies – from Toulouse, to Strasbourg and then to Mudra (Brussels) Maurice Béjart, Alfons Goris and Fernand Schirren … in which encounters were already taking place: the student actors of the Théâtre National de Strasbourg. The Chandra group, followed by the Ballet du XXème siècle, confirmed this desire. Creative work began alongside Daniel Ambash, and the Nyon and Bagnolet competitions (1978) supported this momentum.

WORKING TOGETHER

From 1980 to 1990, buoyed by the confidence of the team at the Maison des arts de Créteil, the research continued with Christiane Glik, Luna Bloomfield and the complicity of Montserrat Casanova. A troupe was formed, strengthened by Cathy Polo, Ulises Alvarez, Teresa Cunha and many others.

In 1985, the company became the Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne. An attempt to work together and make a living from it, supported by intense international distribution. In 1987, a meeting with Denis Mariotte marked the start of a long collaboration that would open up the field of experimentation through mutual questioning outside the framework of a specific artistic field.

DO – UNDO – REDO

1998, a new location.

A new territory for a new National Choreographic Centre in Rillieux-la-Pape, in the Velette district. With the need to reclaim a place in the public space. An intersection of presences acting in a common space: a ‘we, in time and place’. We need to find the distance we need to strengthen our ability to bring out ‘those diagonal forces that resist oblivion’ (H. Arendt).

The work continues in a variety of places – from the Studio, to the Velette district, to partner towns and cities in other countries. It’s a work where creations and multiple interventions intermingle, where artistic demands open up avenues that go beyond the immediate convivial desire to be together.

With the arrival in 2006 of a new building – for the CCN de Rillieux-la-Pape. A place to live in and to co-habit, a civic laboratory for the performing arts, open to the eyes of the city so that the gesture of a public poetics can take place. To create and express through public address, from place to place, from city to city, from country to country, the part of existence that art reflects back to us. And beyond these many places, sharing resources, tools, experiences and actions. To cross artistic fields, to create, to support research, to anchor artistic acts in the various spaces of social life, from schools to theatres, from art centres to social centres, from public spaces to open housing, from research centres to neighbourhood centres, bringing the artistic gesture to life as the poetic power of making and remaking worlds.

2011 will be a year of rethinking the ways in which the company thinks and works. After the intensity of the years spent at the CCN de Rillieux-la-Pape, we need to move on to a new stage and resume work as an independent company. This was an important decision, in response to the ever-present and imperative desire to experiment differently with what is at stake in the act of creation, as a potential for extending what is at its heart in other forms.

After a 3-year stint in Toulouse, the city that will host this new adventure for a short time, without responding favorably to the imperative need for a permanent work space for a permanent company, the idea of setting up at ramdam, a former carpentry shop acquired in 1995 thanks to royalties in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, took shape. For the past 17 years, this venue has been run by an association offering artists residencies, training courses and public openings. This active, long-term project is currently supported by the Rhône Alpes region, the French government and the towns of Lyon and Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon.

The company’s move to this location in 2015 triggered the deployment of a new project shared with other artists: RAMDAM, AN ART CENTER.