Façade, un divertissement

In June 1993, Régine Chopinot created “Façade, un divertissement” based on the English musical poem by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) and the composer Sir William Walton (1902-1983). Written in 1922 as an experimental, entertaining exercise in writing, this work brings together the rhythm of the words, the onomatopoeias and the music, the music of the dances danced by high society (waltz, foxtrot, polka, hornpipe, tango…) with which E. Sitwell grew up. Thus influenced by jazz, romantic music, the tango and even Stravinsky, the universe of “Façade” is not as abstract as it appears on the surface, containing tangible memories and in particular of the family residence of Renishaw Hall, the Sitwells’ summer residence: enchanted gardens, servants, exotic images, paradises lost, misappropriated myths and comical liaisons….

This poem of the musical avant-garde of the 1920s, recited for the first time by Edith Sitwell behind a curtain using a megaphone, is, for Régine Chopinot, the opportunity to conceive “a succession of farcical or nostalgic dances” inspired by the dances of high society. She enlisted the advice of the specialist Christian Dubar, who trained the company’s dancers in ballroom dance. The audiences in La Rochelle were even invited to balls hosted by this eminent professor.

Retaining the musical oeuvre in its entirety to accompany her choreography, R. Chopinot asked Cyril de Turckheim to take on the live musical direction with musicians of the same age as the poem’s authors at the time, i.e. rather young. For “Façade”, the original work, augmented by “Façade 2”, the work reinterpreted in 1950, as well as its duplicates, the choreographer imagines “a visual score, which details the various musical lines, those of the flute, the saxophone, the trumpet, the cello and the voice”: “Therefore, each dancer follows a particular instrument. The spectator can visualise the music to a certain extent.”[1]

The successive tableaux which make up the choreography use the titles of the pieces and are detailed as such in the communication documents which accompany the work:

FAÇADE

FAÇADE 2

Fanfare Flourish Hornpipe

Came the Great Popinjay

En Famille

Aubade

Mariner Man March Long Steel Glass Madame Mouse Trots Through Gilded Tellises The Octogenarian Tango-Pasodoble Gardner Janus Catches a Naiad
Lullaby for Jumbo Water Party Black Mrs. Behemoth
Said King Pompey Tarantella A Man from a Far Countree DOUBLONS By the Lake En Famille Country Dance Tango Pasodoble Polka Lullaby for Jumbo

Four in the Morning

A Man from a Far Countree Something Lies Beyond the Scene Valse Valse Popular Song Joddeling Song Four in the Morning Scotch Rhapsody By the Lake Popular Song

Aubade

Fox-trot : ‘Old Sir Faulk’ Said King Pompey Sir Beelzebub

Régine Chopinot entrusted the work’s set design to the painter Jean Le Gac, who devised a large curtain – perhaps to evoke the performance of E. Sitwell? – raised in the middle to allow the projection of portraits, trompe-l’oeil… etc. Jean Paul Gaultier’s costumes were back on stage in the choreographer’s new venture, adding to the quality of presence the dancer conveyed, free of external trappings which could interfere with her performance. Thus, always playing the eccentricity card, the multi-coloured and close-fitting jumpsuits cover the dancers from head to foot, reinforcing the unity of the body while accentuating the abstract side of work, following the example of E. Sitwell’s performance.

[1] R. Chopinot, in a discussion with S. Dupuis and D. Simonnet, “Je danse donc je vis”, L’Express, 11 November, 1993

Programme extract

““Façade” was written by Edith Sitwell and William Walton “to amuse themselves”. Based on a writing experiment which reproduced a waltz or foxtrot using only the rhythm of the words and the onomatopoeias, they had the idea of jointly composing this suite of short pieces, full of colours and sound humour: a succession of farcical and nostalgic dances, in which the music, full of the spirit of William Walton, produces astonishing visions. Edith Sitwell recited this work for the first time in public in 1922, hidden behind a curtain, a device designed to avoid diverting the attention of the listener from these sound images and to amplify their surrealist subject matter. As many small autonomous universes as of poems, but all nourished by the same imagination: enchanted gardens, childhood memories, exotic images, paradises lost, misappropriated myths and comical liaisons… Victoria neighbours Venus, the zebras of Zanzibar, the amorous Spaniards, the cucumber, the satyr, the echo of the past, the pretty girls from the English countryside. This little world moves about, struts, does battle with itself in anachronistic tableaux arranged with a great deal of freedom and a breath-taking virtuosity.

A universe made to measure for Régine Chopinot who multiplies the resonances and echoes of the images by entrusting the show’s set design to Jean Le Gac and the costumes to Jean Paul Gaultier, inseparable partner and accomplice.”

(Source: Ballet Atlantique press pack, 1993)

Updating: February 2013

Press Articles
– Dubar, Christian. “Les danses de société inspirent les chorégraphes contemporains”, Dansons magazine, janvier 1993, n° 10, p. 11-15. 

– F. A. “Derrière la Façade, Chopinot”, Libération, 6 juillet 1993, p. 33. 

– Frétard, Dominique. “La tradition et la rue”, Le Monde, 7 juillet 1993.