F. et Stein

It is generally considered that this piece has allowed Dominique Bagouet to release his demons to express ambivalence and thus access to the mastery of his style and his inspiration.

Choreography: Dominique Bagouet

I may had reviewed my situation with “F. et Stein”: a solo going in all directions, a sort of satellite in my work, with nearly no choreography, or rather a completely improvised and wild choreography, with only one performer, myself, and the guitarist Sven Lava. I don’t know what it was all about, maybe a mini-psychoanalysis which gave me much joy and suffering.

Sources: Dominique Bagouet, “interviewed by Isabelle Ginot” – April 2 1988

Far from the group, far from the company:  to be alone, and to be double.

To be two: Frank and Stein. Frankenstein is a film monster, both scaring and moving, who exposes himself. He is a vulnerable human being, like Elephant Man, halfway between death and horror, and life and love… “F. et Stein” could be the show of the monstrous resurrection set in plastic and old plaster scenery. A necessary complicity comes out of the meeting of a rock musician with a contemporary dancer-choreographer:  to become another in order to live.

For the musician:  to turn his music into dance, to work on it again and again in order to make it so fine and wild that it becomes the very space of the choreography.

For the dancer:  to subject himself to the test of dancing with no choreography, dancing with his nerves, dancing his fear till the fringes of the limits. Then Bagouet can return to his characters: death, madness, light. Through the music’s beat and a mysterious alchemy, Bagouet transforms each of them with his dance, frail but elastic, desperate but lively. This solo with two people is shown as both a terrible call for help and an attractive provocation in its living aspect. It gives, as life does, its derisiveness and hope, and as death, its seduction and revolt.

Sources: Jean-Paul Montanari, “Programme of the Bagouet Company “ – 1983

Credits

Conception: Dominique Bagouet

Choreography and dance: Dominique Bagouet

Duration: 16′

Music: Sven Lava-Pohlhammer (electric guitar) played live

Assistant: Angelin Preljocaj

Scenery: Christine Le Moigne

Costumes: Maritza Gligo

Stage lighting: Jacques Chatelet

Direction: Charles Picq

Production: Les Carnets Bagouet

Date of creation: February 19th 1983, Tinel de la Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lez-Avignon

Performance recorded in May 20th 1983, Théâtre de Grammont at Montpellier

Last update: December 2012