KOK

Régine Chopinot created “K.O.K” in November 1988 at the Maison de la culture in La Rochelle, a ballet inspired by boxing, a sport that she became fascinated with when it was broadcast and popularized by Canal +, a young, inventive French pay-TV channel. Not only enthralled by the body language of this sport but also by the comments that assimilated it to dance, Régine Chopinot decided to create a performance based on this world. Although the influence of television on this work may seem insignificant, it did have an impact: Régine Chopinot’s choreography owed a lot to the way sports programmes were made, which were always at the cutting-edge of technical advances in the audiovisual field.

Initially, Régine Chopinot had thought about reproducing a boxing match to a tee (after having imagined using boxing body language to pastiche a classical ballet): the mythical encounter between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler in Las Vegas in 1977. But she was quickly forced to give up the idea: “It was just a dream to think we could have done it. Only boxers can take part in a fight in the ring. It’s impossible to reproduce someone else’s match. A boxing match isn’t like a ballet that can be communicated, passed on” [1]. So, she decided to work out her own fights. For the next two years, Chopinot and her dancers swapped their dance studios for a gymnasium where they took part in sustained English boxing training with a well-known coach.

Created for four boxer-performers and an actor (Jean-Hugues Laleu), the matches that oppose Poids Chiche (R. Chopinot), Alonso Plumard (Joseph Lennon), Archie Black (Lee Black) and Boo Bull (Poonie Dudson) take place in twelve rounds, on a rotating ring designed by Marc Caro, backed by a very precise soundtrack produced by André Serré,  mixing noises of crowds (boos, applause, etc.), of the match (announces, whistles, refereeing, etc.), beats of tango and lyrical music, notably interpreted by the soprano Marie Atget. These twelve zany rounds were described as follows, in the communication materials that accompanied the work:

1st round: An irreplaceable coach: Mr Benamou conducts intensive training for five dancers 
2nd round: The infernal duo 3rd round: 3 minutes – 1 minute – 3 minutes – 1 minute: ritual
4th round: The mythological décor of an arena created by Marc Caro: the ring is central
5th round: Long live Mohamed Ali, adieu to butchery boxing 6th round: All is played out between six eyes – The face-to-face of the boxers under the eyes of the referee
7th round: Looking for a boost in Marie Atger’s voice
8th round: Naked by Jean Paul Gaultier
9th round: In matches where there’s no K.O., it’s often the decisive stage
10th round: Boxing, this noble art, a weaveworld of technical fancywork, 11th round: The complicity of sound with André Serré and of light with Gérard Boucher 12th round: Last round: Choreography and production by Régine Chopinot.

Marked by a series of setbacks, the achievement of “K.O.K” was one of a saga and its final creation date was postponed for five months, meaning it had to be dropped from the Montpellier Danse Festival programming. Yet, its colossal ambitions would go on to be rewarded and reviews would be unanimously confident about its success. Régine Chopinot produced a video clip, a totally “must-do” means of communication, entitled “K.O.K [clip]” at the same time as she created her work.

This creation, which arrived during a period in which Régine Chopinot had become a highly-sought-after media phenomenon, was a means for her to rediscover her art, as Annie Suquet suggests in her 2010 book on the choreographer: “In a rather more discreet way perhaps, boxing reminded Régine Chopinot of what she expected from dance, when she was thinking that she may have strayed from the path. In boxing, the necessity to train pushes the individual’s mental and physical resources to their limit.” [2] When “ANA” (1990), her next creation hit the scene, she said to the press: “My ballets were pyres where I burnt my dance. Boxing helped me rediscover my body and the pleasure of movement…” [3]

[1] R. Chopinot in an interview with Michel Chemin, “Régine Chopinot, la danse qui fait bing !”, see Régine Chopinot’s artist file, CND (National Centre for Dance) media library.
[2] A. Suquet, “Chopinot”, Le Mans: Ed. Cénomane, 2010, p.41.
[3] R. Chopinot quoted by Brigitte Hernandez, “La brise Chopinot”, Le Point, 5 November 1990, No. 946, p.27.

Updating : March 2012