Die Waage (La Balance) [transmission 2019]

An extract remodelled by the group Danse contemporaine Maison pop, coordinator Élodie Escarmelle,  as part of Danse en amateur et répertoire programme 2018/2019 (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing). Transmission by Marie-Charlotte Chevalier. Presented 25 May 2019, place de la Pointe, Pantin.

L’œuvre à la création

Die Waage [La Balance] 

Firstly produced: ca. 1930

Choreography: Albrecht Knust

Dance work for two groups and one leader

Original duration: 8 minutes

The group

Danse contemporaine Maison Populaire (Montreuil, Île-de-France)

This contemporary dance group, comprising amateur adults aged between twenty-three and fifty-nine years old, who get together at the Maison Populaire in Montreuil, unites several generations around choreographic practice. These workshops, led by Élodie Escarmelle, trained in Laban notation, focus on improvisation and creation work and, as such, transmit the fundamentals of dance through experience and exploration.

The project

The Maison Populaire workshop was attracted to Albrecht Knust’s famous choral dance, Die Waage [The Scales] for the way in which it mobilized the group as an organic entity. In the choral system – which is based on simple notions such as gravity, body lateralization and selected observation of its different parts in time and space -, the group takes precedence over the individual, creating a harmonious ensemble moving in a single impetus. The group, accompanied by Marie-Charlotte Chevalier and Élodie Escarmelle, both Laban practitioners, will have the opportunity to pursue its research work on choreology and to address all aspects of these social and collective teachings of dance.