Nos Songlines [transmission 2024]

A choreographic extract remodelled by the Groupe amateur du programme Format, coordinator Marion Grange, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme 2023/2024 (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

Transmission by Alexandre Da Silva, performer, Marie Fonte, performer, Joanne Leighton, choreographer

Presented on 15 June 2024, Le Manège de Reims.

The piece when it was created

Songlines

Firstly produced 8 February 2018 at CDCN Atelier de Paris during Faits d’hiver as part of the Paris Réseau Danse

Choreography: Joanne Leighton

Work for eight performers: Lauren Bolze, Marion Carriau, Alexandre Da Silva, Marie Fonte, Yannick Hugron, Flore Khoury, Sabine Rivière, Bi-Jia Yang 

Music: In C, de Terry Riley 

Associated Music Publishers, Inc., represented by Première Music Group 

Original duration: 1h10 min

The group

Amateur dancers from the Format program (Aubenas, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes)

Every year since 2016, the amateur dancers from the Format program have created original choreography and staged an end-of-season festival. The group is made up of around twenty adults, with roughly equal numbers of men and women. It meets every week at the Palabre cultural centre in Aubenas. At Format, diversity is a watch word, and the dancers strive to bring their individual approach to their work, while respecting the style of the choreographers. In staging Songlines, the group also chose to focus on the environment, in partnership with local stakeholders.  

The project

The idea for this project arose in 2016, when Format invited Joanne Leighton to tour her piece Les Modulables in different spaces and landscapes across the region of Ardèche. Leighton was captivated by the variety of landscapes in the region, and her meeting with the group inspired them to restage her work Songlines. The piece takes the simple act of walking as a starting point, making it easily accessible to all. While collective, the choreography also provides the freedom to explore individual as well as joint digressions. Walking is both an everyday movement and a fundamental part of the history of danse since the 1960s. For Format, it also provides a way to explore their relationship to nature and with each other as a group. The restaging was overseen by Marie Fonte and Alexandre Da Silva, who have worked and danced with Leighton since 2015.   

Amateur Dance and Repertory is a companion program to amateur practice beyond the dance class and the technical learning phase. Intended for groups of amateur dancers, it opens a space of sharing for those who wish to deepen a practice and a knowledge of the dance in relation to its history.

Laurent Barré
Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
+33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr

Source: CN D

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme