Couleurs de femmes

Couleurs de femmes was the first creation of the Yun Chane Company in 1995, and is being reprised in 2005 and 2016.

Couleurs de femmes was the first creation of the Yun Chane Company in 1995, and is being reprised in 2005 and 2016.

The idea behind the choreography is based on a memory process around the history of Reunion Island and the female characters that have helped to build it. The work by Cléli Gamaleya, Les Filles d’Héva, was an inspiration when choreographing this piece as it retraces the history of women on the island for three centuries and starts to build up an image of the original Reunion woman.

The source of the gestural expression of this piece is to be found in the extended cry which gives rise to a jerky reaction by the entire body as if shaken by hiccups. This jerky energy draws on the deepest resources in the body so that it emerges and picks up the impact and impulse technique that the choreographer loves so well. The collision between bodies and a material, like the violent impact of the dancers’ fingers on corrugated iron, shakes us and reveals to us what remains of the woman’s broken body.

According to the choreographer, the Reunion woman is in an emotional state but this lies buried. The search for inspiration derives from an act of reparation which supposes a willingness to bring out this hidden emotional state and show “resilience”. The idea is to go back to the past to identify a trauma and heal oneself by a process of affective reconstruction.

This is a revival of Couleurs de femmes and the choreographer has made the impulse and impact techniques more fluid. She has kept the original staging and the use of corrugated iron which has become the key moment of this piece.

Source : Lalanbik

More information : 

https://www.lalanbik.org/

http://cieyunchane.free.fr/