Le saut de l'ange

(23 juin 1993) Dance becomes sometimes a series of indecipherable attitudes with weird aspects as if one were describing an unknown animal species.

Choreography: Dominique Bagouet

Stories and their mystery narrated only through choreography satisfy me. Sequences succeed with no principle of construction being pointed out. The succession must keep unexpected characteristics, without any connection between them.

Dance becomes sometimes a series of indecipherable attitudes with weird aspects as if one were describing an unknown animal species. Anyway, images or evocations, when aroused by choreography, are always very allusive. Nothing is ever explicitely shown, and there’s also the urge to find again a certain liking for play, a certain extremely arranged imaginativeness, like in circus acts.

Sources: Dominique Bagouet – March 2nd 1987

For this creation, as for the previous ones, there was no idea to start with, no intention, no subject to illustrate or to defend, but rather a feeling. That’s why I often feel closer to a painter when facing his canvas. Actually, Boltanski did not know anything about dance, and had never worked with people in show business. The detachment he brought to my work was decisive. His look at dance is simple but extremely accurate. The way he reminds us of our own conventions is both very brutal and very naïve. One day he suggested to me the title of the play at the end of a work session, and I received it like an haïku to be deciphered. It was like a present for me.

Sources: Dominique Bagouet, “Entretien avec Chantal Aubry” – 1989

Credits

Conception: Dominique Bagouet and Christian Boltanski

Choreography: Dominique Bagouet

Duration: 75′

Dancers: Jean-Pierre Alvarez, Sarah Charrier, Rita Cioffi, Bernard Glandier, Catherine Legrand, Dominique Noel, Sonia Onckelinx, Fabrice Ramalingom, Michèle Rust, Juan Manuel Vicente.

Assistant: Elisabeth Disdier

Dramatist: Alain Neddam

Music: Ludwig van Beethoven and Pascal Dusapin

Scenery: Christian Boltanski

Stage lighting: Laurent Matignon

Costumes: Dominique Fabrègue and Christian Boltanski

Direction: Charles Picq

Production: Les Carnets Bagouet.

Date of creation: June 24th 1987, cour Jacques Cœur in Montpellier

Performance recorded on June 22nd and 23rd 1993, cour Jacques Cœur in Montpellier

*Filmed on June 1993, during the tribute to Dominique Bagouet given by the Compagnie Bagouet and the International Festival Montpellier Danse. Because of the rain, that occurred during the Premiere, the end of the film is a gros-plan of a sequence of the dress rehearsal.

Last update: December 2012