Hervé Robbe's Summer Quarters

It was inspired by frescos by Michelangelo. The extract presented here shows a rehearsal, a precious moment that captures how the choreographer transmits gestures and steps via a sort of kinaesthetic contamination.

Neither co-productions in the true sense, nor creative residencies, the Summer Quarters at the CNDC in Angers allowed around ten companies a year – during the late 1980s – to use the studios and accommodation while the students of the dance school were on holiday. Companies proliferated, encouraged by the contemporary dance development policy orchestrated by the Minister of Culture, Jack Lang.Hervé Robbe was in Angers in 1988 to prepare the work Ignude Ignudi, which was produced in 1989 at the Théâtre de la Bastille. It was inspired by frescos by Michelangelo. The extract presented here shows a rehearsal, a precious moment that captures how the choreographer transmits gestures and steps via a sort of kinaesthetic contamination, based mainly on the performers “listening” with their bodies. This is the opposite of transmission by demonstration which is then reproduced.    This strategy resonates with the particular and exceptionally musical quality of his writing. This sets the flow of movement according to a very subtle circulation of currents, the masses displaced in an unfurling spiral through the whole vertical of the body, favouring a counterbalancing openness of the upper body.  

Gérard Mayen

Credits

enregistré en 1988 dans les studios Bodinier du CNDCchorégraphie Hervé Robbeinterprétation Jacopo Godani, Myriam Lebreton, Hervé Robbe, Nathalie Sembinelli, Gilles Welinskycomposition musicale T. Toeplitz Kasperproduction CNDC Angers