Beast of Nonation [transmission 2015]

Extrait de la pièce de James Carlès remontée par la compagnie Périphéri’k (Elven), coordinatrice artistique Kaylie Le Trionnaire, dans le cadre de “Danse en amateur et répertoire” (2014)

Choreography by James Carlès
A choreographic extract remodelled by the company Périphéri’k (Elven), artistic coordinator Kaylie Le Trionnaire, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2014) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group
Based in Morbihan, the association Périphéri’K brings together nine female dancers, aged between thirteen and twenty-one today, as an extension of the teaching they receive in their dance school, directed by Kaylie Le Trionnaire (classical, contemporary, African dance and jazz dance). With between five and ten years’ experience, their aesthetic goal is to dedicate themselves to projects rooted in the present moment, nurtured by a thorough understanding of the current overlaps between African, hip-hop and jazz dances. Their practice involves a questioning of origins, which is where the input provided by James Carlès is of particular value, giving solid foundations to their weekly work sessions.

The project
While numbers remain constant, there are no male participants in the thirteen-minute extract chosen from Beast of Nonation. Passionate about training, and participating for the second time in the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” national meeting, James Carlès leads the project personally. He considers this work, dealing with African roots, as conducive to a fundamental questioning for amateurs often inclined to reproduce energy models drawn from Broadway imagery. He transmits techniques of gaze, circulation of energy flows, intentional charging with interpretative meaning, combined with techniques of musical attentiveness and anchoring, leading to a studied rhythmic elaboration. 

The choreographer
A Franco-Cameroonian, James Carlès was trained in the Anglo-Saxon modern style. He introduces to his unique jazz dance a concern with afro-descendant filiations, providing an historical reading of black dances, whose perspectives vary greatly according to whether they are considered in an American or European context, for example. James Carlès created his first work in 1989, opened a training venue in Toulouse ten years later, before initiating ten years after that the festival Danses et Continents noirs. Created in 2001 to a music by the Nigerian artist Fela Kuti, Beast of Nonation (“a beast that has no land”) is emblematic of the quest for a jazz beat through the prism of African roots.