Gueule de loup [transmission 2016]

Extrait remonté par le groupe Aléa Citta (Parthenay), coordinatrice Ana Popovic, dans le cadre de Danse en amateur et répertoire (2015)

Choreography by Christine Bastin

An extract remodelled by the group Aléa Citta (Parthenay), coordinator Ana Popovic, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2015) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

The group

Created in 1991 in Parthenay (Deux-Sèvres), Aléa Citta, made up of eight female amateur dancers with more than ten years’ commitment, is led by Ana Popovic, who has participated in a large number of training courses with Christine Bastin. She regularly sets up specific projects thought out with her group in mind. In 2013, the dancers worked on solos entitled Amoureuses to songs by Barbara. A year later, she proposed a research around the dance-music relationship in collaboration with a musician. The group uses the dance studio l’Archipel, a venue available for various associations and equipped with a dance floor and mat.

The project

The choice of Christine Bastin was the result of the workshops attended by Ana Popovic, who appreciates her teaching and her work, combining sensitivity, emotion and powerful dramaturgy in between movement and speech. The themes of Gueule de loup, originally created for five interpreters, such as life and death, female strength, impulse and restraint, fascinate the group that also questions the place of archaic, vital dance today, within the choreographic landscape. The chosen extract, Femmes, is a recreation based on Gueule de loup (1992) as well as Mariam (2006). It mainly focuses on female singularity and the immense range of nuances of their energy, from the most subtle to the most offensive.

The choreographer

A figure of 1980s dance in France, Christine Bastin, with a background in law, philosophy and psychoanalysis, plunges into the roots of the living to extract a charged and carnal gesture, the reflection of the psychological conflicts that shake the human being. At the crossroads of dance, circus and theatre, she created her company Folia in 1986. She builds on scenarios that are often tense – Gueule de loup (1992) is inspired by the work of the Spanish writer Camilo José Cela – to deliver a physically sharpened statement spurred by a need to push beyond bodily and mental limits. Passionate about all representation spaces, indoor and outdoor alike, Christine Bastin is also a teacher and regularly transmits her repertoire.