Concertino

This work for ten dancers, created at the Quartz in Brest in November 1990, draws its inspiration from the words of “The Book of Disquiet” by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa.

“Concertino”, a work for ten dancers, was created at the Quartz in Brest in November 1990 after a ten-week residence at the Manoir de Keroual (Finistère, Brittany).

In the work’s accompanying notes, Catherine Diverrès considers it as the evocation of “a gathering of a family in a home, or of individuals connected together by a common story”. And, she adds: “On the day and night of a wedding, or a funeral, perhaps the dream of each of these people where everyone is in the other’s dream. We don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead. The events of a lifetime pass by, with the procession of feelings and nostalgic minimal images of childhood. At times, the sensuality of the scents and colours that emanates from nearby nature, at times, the violence, the absurdity of nightmares”. [1] The successive surrounding scenes are criss-crossed by representations of partner dances and traditional dances, as well as rituals that seem to bind this community together.

The very heart of this new creation draws its inspiration from the discovery of “The Book of Disquiet” by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, recently translated into French (the first publication dates from 1982 and the French translation from 1988) and cornerstone of the work undertaken in the studio with the dancers. Snatches of text from the original Portuguese version and from the French translation punctuate the work, which is accompanied by Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Piano Concerto No. 2”. As such, “a sequence of dreamlike scenes, forming a whole, takes place… moments of intense life and silences conducive to contemplative expectation. Bruises of passion, feelings detonated in a decor where the flurry of scattered straw contrasts the delicate wall of a bouquet of roses”. [2]

The choreographer imagined the stage design for the creation. A shimmering film stretched out at the back of the stage reflects the scenic space depending on the intensity of Pierre-Yves Lohier’s lighting, which structures the scenic space and embraces a dramaturgic role in its own right. From time to time, the shimmering surface also hosts the projection of the painting “Le Repas des moissonneurs” by the naturalist painter Jules-Jacques Veyrassat (1852, Chartres Museum of Fine Arts), then a short cinematic sequence by the experimental filmmaker Teo Hernandez, as such, extending their collaboration following on from “Le Printemps” (1989) and “Fragment” (1989).

“Concertino” was given widespread coverage. Its performance was particularly applauded, notably Catherine Diverrès’ solo, which took place at the midpoint of the creation and which was danced accompanied by the recorded voice of the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova reading her poem “Requiem”, a tribute to her assassinated son, and “high point of the show” [3] as stated by the critic Jean-Marc Adolphe. On several occasions in her statement of intent and in interviews that she gave about her creation, the choreographer insists on the uncompromising conception that she sees in the work of any dancer, where they become fully-fledged “authors” of their dance: “The dancer’s revolution has yet to take place” she declared in the French newspaper Le Monde, “I am here to create my works, but my dancers must become the authors of their own dance”. [4] From this work onwards, Catherine Diverrès would, moreover, accompany the artistic aspect of her creations with texts theorizing her discipline, as Irène Filiberti, Catherine Diverrès specialist, emphasizes: “Through documents provided by the Company and through various publications, newspapers, magazines, books, a way of conceptualizing is sketched, which no longer involves only oral transmission with the dancers, during interviews and conversations held in public or with the critic, but also the production of texts (…) most of her writing relates to the transmission of dance and to dance training. This area would be particularly developed when she was appointed as Director of the National Choreographic Centre of Rennes and Brittany (CCNRB)”. [5]

“Concertino”, one of the major works of her production, would become a milestone in Catherine Diverrès’ career. For Irène Filiberti, this new creation, produced seven years after “Instance”, was to mark the moment when the choreographer would “assess what has been accomplished” and would draw up a choreographic review: “Choreography left the relation with narration aside a long time ago. If dramatic action does exist, it is not to be found in the comprehension of a story or a discourse but in a rhythmic, emotional, essentially musical tension provoked by situations, individual life journeys, unusual encounters between bodies, trajectories and objects. Dance’s strength continues to be in its capacity for abstraction. Choreography is the poetic writing of an acute conception of the length and the anonymous impulses of a period. Dance cannot be perceived without this momentary nostalgia, “capturing” the fleetingness of the present. Traces interest us as they make up memory. It is the sensation, the quality of what the eye and the ear will feel that will decide the “second life” (permanence) of the work. It is the feeling of pure temporality, on the whole metaphysical, which brings substance to a scenographic space”. [6]

Claire Delcroix

[1] Catherine Diverrès quoted by Jean-Marc Adolphe, Théâtre de la Ville programme, 4-6 June 1991.
[2] Onyx of Saint Herblain programme, 17 March 1992.
[3] Théâtre de la Ville handbill, 4-6 June 1996.
[4] Dominique Frétard, “La chorégraphe de l’intranquillité”, Le Monde, 30 May 1991.
[5] I. Filiberti, Catherine Diverrès mémoires passantes, Paris : Centre national de la danse ; L’Oeil d’or, 2010, p. 89.
[6] Ibid., p. 69

About this work

There is no rupture in this work, but a withdrawn disturbance, awakening to other modes of perception. Building on reality that is more everyday than in the previous creations – social and family ties, events that may mark a lifetime –, the dancers’ particular performance pursues a more abstract dimension. Strange wigged lackey, Bernardo Montet gives the impression that he is pacing, Rita Quaglia’s incantations rise up like tapered arms. Impassioned duos, blind desire and carnal derision divulge a feeling where each moves away from the other, as if it has been erased. As such, time seems to beat the drum just like the bodies. Air and transparency. Breathing. Other spaces, other dances appear between the inhalation and the exhalation. By reiterating itself, the movement becomes a sketch, recreating an overall vision and expressing a feeling of life removed from reality. The dancers are placed, displaced, in front and diagonal lines, and also sitting in front of a table like in the Last Supper. They come regularly and shatter their gangue against the edges of the table. The movement becomes striking, feverish to be set free, pounding the wood. As a counterpoint, miniature fluted notes erupt, lively swaying. Parade, seduction, broken necks, stretched out camber, the scenes follow one another. Around the white corollas, formed by the women’s dresses, innervated romanticism moves. The lyricism dashes across the image of a country-style wedding. Elsewhere, a depiction of the Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian and even a sudden altercation. Even though the poetry of the bodies is tinted with tragedy and remote derision, it leads each performer to fill the space of their traverse. Modulated, oscillating, the surreptitious effervescence that moves them distils a rebel dance, which transgresses certainties and keeps its secret sealed in the prism of refined disenchantment.

I. Filiberti, “Catherine Diverrès, mémoires passantes”, Paris : Centre national de la danse (Parcours d’artiste) ; L’Oeil d’or, 2010, p. 68-69

Updating: May 2014