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Roman Photo [transmission 2015]
Extrait de la pièce de Boris Chamatz remontée par le groupe Boutures (Combourg), dans le cadre de “Danse en amateur et répertoire” (2014)
Choreography by Boris Charmatz
A choreographic extract remodelled by the group Boutures (Combourg), as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme (2014) (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).
The group
Based in Combourg between Rennes and Saint-Malo, Extension sauvage is a contemporary dance programme in rural areas, driven by the choreographer Latifa Laâbissi, who was also an interpreter alongside Boris Charmatz. The group Boutures has witnessed some fifteen children immerse themselves completely into works, under the watchful eye of their choreographers (D. Brun, E. Huynh, G. Jobin, J. Nioche). For the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” meeting, coherence is at its utmost as, at its outset, Roman Photo was imagined, by Boris Charmatz, as an offshoot adaptable to very varied groups and contexts, generally amateur, according to the very principle of chain transmission, as revealed by the writing of his Flip Book based on Merce Cunningham.
The choreographer
Since the mid-1990s, Boris Charmatz has radically questioned the historical and ideological conditions of the sustainment of choreographic art, via its techniques and transmission methods. He has directed the paradoxical project of a Dance Museum in Rennes since 2008 (as part of a CCN). He was artist associated with the direction of the Festival d’Avignon in 2011. Created in 2009, the piece Flip Book takes a caustic look at the legacy of the great contemporary dance master, Merce Cunningham. The interpreters of this piece reproduce the pauses on the three hundred photos of David Vaughan’s work, Merce Cunningham – Fifty Years. The result is an original meta-choreography. Roman Photo is its version for amateurs.
The artist
Olga Dukhovnaya met Boris Charmatz when she took part in the setting up of Roman Photo, going on to become one of his regular interpreters. She leads this transmission. From the outset, Roman Photo was imagined as a relay intended for amateurs, students, participants in workshops, based on Flip Book, the original professional piece. The principle of the latter suggests a chain transmission, which places its interpreters in the situation of strictly reproducing the pauses observed on the photos of the work Merce Cunningham – Fifty Years, and of imagining for them, very personally, an interpretative logic of sequences and transitions. The result is a strange kinesthetics, formulating questions of rhythms, frontality and intentions.
