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Michel Kelemenis opens his artistic diary not without a touch of humour. Coming from the creative ferment of young French dance of the 1980s, he revives the historical or offbeat pages of his transformational journey from a dancer to a choreographer.

1984, a pivotal year.

French dance experiences unprecedented, constructive momentum under Brigitte Lefèvre’s founding work in the field. The map of the first National Choreographic Centres emerges; an essential work by Dominique Bagouet, Déserts d’amour, draws attention to the French choreographer of Montpellier. Jostling for position within the company he joined the previous year, Michel Kelemenis already tries his hand at choreography with 10 minutes d’écoute musicale, a work of fantasy addressed to his elders. With Angelin Preljocaj, who was reaching the end of his stay in Montpellier, he enters into a gesture for gesture sparing contest during which neither will yield the slightest supremacy to the other: Aventure coloniale, a duet created for the summer festival ignites the Théâtre de Paris, Rue Blanche, during the inauguration of the Théâtre Contemporain de la Danse, forerunner of the current Centre National de la Danse. The three works are connected by their compositional style, which was developed by Bagouet and is based on the writing of gestural modules set in a variant space.

Michel Kelemenis founds his company in 1987 and settles two years later in Marseille. From work to work, the intuition for a dance capable of expressing the world all by itself emerges. Difficult to classify but clearly recognizable, his work is identified by an organic and virtuoso dance that is nuanced rather than contrasting.

The choreographer who is invited to different ballet companies progressively considers his own structure as a research laboratory that delights in the confrontation with other bodies. La Danse de Mélina, among many other choreographic works, will win over dancers with classical training for example, whereas Image, in its double duet version, will even integrate pointe technique.

The accomplishment – conceptual and sensual at the same time – of the gestural language is nourished by exchanges between bodies trained differently, but it is also enriched by the transformation of existing elements.

With Reflet, Michel Kelemenis composes a palimpsest. The dances of the female quartet, Aphorismes géométriques, join the more recent dances for men inspired by the perfect sparkling of the salt-water lake of the Siwa oasis. The two sources recall this ongoing reflection between abstraction and incarnation, specific to the danced presence.

The performers of the programme have accompanied the choreographer for several years now. Their commitment and talent have inspired this singular evening during which a more than 30-year creative journey is depicted not without a smile