Le Défilé

Epitomizing Régine Chopinot’s encounter with Jean Paul Gaultier, “Le Défilé”, designed for sixteen performers, focuses on a fanciful, delirious fashion show. Presented for the first time at the Pavillon Baltard in Nogent-sur-Marne back in the autumn of 1985, this ballet opened the second season of the young Théâtre contemporain de la danse (TCD – Contemporary Theatre of Dance).

Blurring the boundaries between a choreographic performance and a fashion show, this real-unreal fashion parade takes place on a “T”-shaped podium, with dimensions adjusted to offer the performers a freedom of movement that would have been unthinkable with the dimensions used in the world of fashion. Fourteen décors follow on one after the other, around themes that aim “to sometimes intensify morphological particularities and to sometimes invent them, with strikes of prostheses and accessories” [1]:

“I La bosse de la danse (the dance hump) / II Les hommes bijoux (the jewellery men) / III Les jokers / IV Les mariés (the bride and groom) / V Les derniers “cri-nolines” (the latest “cri-nolines”)/
VI Les accessoires encombrants (Cumbersome accessories): les vacances de m’sieur Dame (Mr-Mrs’ holidays), Cloche-pied Cloche-tête (hopping, head-hopping) / VII Les bronzages (suntans) /
VIII Les coussins (cushions) / IX Les souvenirs de vacances (holiday memories): Rome, St. Tropez, les bains romains (Roman baths) / X Fenêtres sur corps (Body windows) / 
XI Les vieux slips (old pants) / XII Manque d’air (lack of air) / XIII Les puzzles / XIV L’étalage (the display)”

Right in the middle of this joyous outpouring, the dancers, blending in with actors and models, parade in costumes that are evermore burlesque one after the other, snapped at under a flurry of camera flashes conjured up by a stroboscope created by the lighting designer Gérard Bouche, inciting attitudes provoked by their costumes. Because the costumes are not just the subject of the work, they are also genuine partners. As a result of their weight, their texture, “the fabrics appear to be animated through their own kinetic potential, and the dance, that awakens it, has to adapt and integrate its reactions”: “Michèle Prélonge and Claire Servant, two performers in “Le Défilé”, evoke, for example, the element of slowness, introduced in their dance by the voluminous white-knit crinolines that they wore in the “Derniers cri-nolines” sequence. These crinoline dresses with panniers were not only heavy to hoist around during repeated jumps and knee-falls – whereas the impression they gave was one of subtle lightness -, but, due to their flexibility and volume, their responsiveness was not on cue during turns and twists. There was little evidence of the effort of rhythmic adjustment that was involved, and of the energy required to make it. The dance work did not appear more than the bodies of the dancers themselves” [2].

Financed essentially by private partners, “Le Défilé” would go on to tour internationally. As such, it was presented at the Palladium in New York, the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Villa Médicis in Rome, in Milan, at the Lille Festival, the Zénith in Montpellier, the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, etc.

Marc Caro produced a video version in 1986, “Le Défilé [clip]”, where he retained only four extremely short sequences: “Fenêtres sur corps”, “Dernier cri-noline”, “Les Mariés” and “Les Vieux slips” accelerated. On 13 September 1987, Régine Chopinot presented the new version of her “Défilé” at the Maison des arts et de la culture (MAC) in Créteil, which was now reduced to twelve performers.

[1] A. Suquet, “Chopinot”, Le Mans: Ed. Cénomane, 2010, p.31.

[2] A. Suquet, op. cit, p.33.

Updating: March 2012