Rossignol

Following her three-month residence at the National Centre for Contemporary Dance (CNDC) in Angers, Régine Chopinot created one of the first-ever contemporary aerial ballets during the winter of 1985 and gave it a wonderfully-sounding pastoral name, “Rossignol”, or Nightingale in English. The ballet was then presented at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in January 1986.

In an atmosphere of sound, created by André Serre, and stripped bare of all dramatization, ten harnessed dancers, dressed in multicoloured costumes fashioned by Jean Paul Gaultier, who is partnering with the choreographer for the third time, indulge in displays of flights and acrobatics. An eight-metre high scaffolding, decorated with walkways, forming a cage from centre stage to the flies, makes these exploits possible. Mini-pad mikes, nestled in key locations in this scaffolding, “deform and amplify the sound of voices, the squeaks of the pulleys, the noise of footsteps, the metallic rattling. Apart from a few musical winks, this gurgling is the only acoustic sound in “Rossignol”.” [1]. Far from overwhelming the choreography that it hosts, this grandiose system invites to explore the aspects of ‘space’ like never before and offers such a freedom of movement that sets it apart from baroque-style machinery. Thanks to the complicity of the machinists, operating the harnesses behind the scenes in the fly loft, the bodies meld together like magic yet without discounting the ever-present endangerment that creates intense tension. The choreography liberates the dancers from gravity and brings their relationship with solid ground back into play. In this respect, it could have been a real challenge for Noémie Perlov, the choreologist to notate “Rossignol”. Although it is the bearer, this partition does not yet totally reflect the interest that Régine Chopinot had for the traces, but should be considered as an additional tool for dissecting the movement and for examining it.

With “Rossignol”, Régine Chopinot took her art into an as-yet-unknown dimension, a dimension that incited quite a few to qualify the work as a “choreographic Beaubourg” [2], a grand production reinforced by its décors, costumes and performers, that would lead her slowly towards imagining the monumental “ANA” (1990).

[1] J.-M. Adolphe, Rossignol, Pour la danse, No. 113, May 1985.
[2] B. Paulo-Neto, Journal du Théâtre de la Ville, No. 69, September 1985.

Updating: February 2013