De humani corporis fabrica

The relationship between music and dance is played out in the perspective of a reflection on the stage composition. The six musicians create a dramatic event and the staging integrates the sound space.

Françoise Letellier’s proposal to invite Hervé Robbe to create a piece for the Festival d’Avignon 92, with the accent on the relationship between music and dance, came at a time when the company was embarking upon a collaboration with the Sextuor à Cordes (String Sextet) of the A.I.E.C. (Contemporary Expression Instrumental Workshop).
In keeping with the theme of this project, we commissioned a work from composer Costin Miereanu. The relationship between music and dance is played out in the perspective of a reflection on the stage composition. The six musicians create a dramatic event and the staging integrates the sound space. Outside of this musical dimension, the team’s preoccupation is to re-centre the intention of the dance in the body.
The Renaissance humanist Andreas Vesalius’s anatomical work “De humani corpis fabrica” (On the fabric of the human body) captivated Hervé Robbe with its twin perception of the human body:
– a baroque and artistic perception revealed by anatomical iconography, which tries to sublimate reality and tame the idea of death by putting the écorchés in Mannerist poses.
The gestural and choreographic research was inspired by the complementary nature of the methodology and iconography in this work: body-system/body-passion.
The eventual aim is to go beyond all systems to affirm the supremacy of an expression by the body and specific to it.

Source: Centre National Chorégraphique du Havre Haute-Normandie