Factory

If toil happens by means of physical hardship, the latter alternates with relaxation. This involves the body at rest, but can equally involve it in a festive activity, synonymous with using energy.

Factory remains one of the iconic works of Hervé Robbe’s artistic career. While maintaining the discipline of choreographic and sculptural research, sharing the stage area with the audience gives produces a convivial atmosphere and turns the performance into an event. Ever since his first choreographic experiments, Hervé Robbe has concentrated on the sculptural and architectural aspect of his sets, and in so doing he reveals his ability to work between volumes and dance. When in 1993 he was invited to devise a choreographic work in collaboration with a plastic artist, Hervé Robbe approached Richard Deacon, one of the most interesting representatives of 1980s English sculpture. The dialogue between the two designers was established right away, thanks to the sculptor’s desire to move closer to dance. Richard Deacon and Hervé Robbe give the body an obsessive pre-eminence, in particular regarding the value of “toil”. These two personalities felt the need to express their emotions through crafted and considered objects. The involvement of the body in the act and in the space is fundamental to the work. For this reason Richard Deacon considers himself to be an artisan. Moreover, his sculptures often originate from a polymorphic representation of the body, while the materials used have a much sought-after tactile quality. With their organic forms, they invite the body to curl up in or around them, a property that weaves an intimacy with the dancer’s body.
If toil happens by means of physical hardship, the latter alternates with relaxation. This involves the body at rest, but can equally involve it in a festive activity, synonymous with using energy (like at a ball, for example…). Hervé Robbe and Richard Deacon were tempted to play on this slipping between work and play.
To construct the work, Hervé Robbe did not establish a fixed scenario, preferring to choose a few terms which still show through in the finalised work:
WORK – PLAY – BLUE – BLUE WORK OVERALL
They also decided to break with a frontal presentation. The designers seem to be searching for a non-traditional stage area. Hervé Robbe and Richard Deacon ask this question: does the position in space of the spectator (receptor) facing an object influence the (emotional) impact of the artwork?
The issues tackled by this revival are the re-exploration of the possibilities of this staging method, the recreation after several years of a new dance for this piece, at a time these interactive experiments between audience and artwork are the subject of much debate.

Source : Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie