Platform for international young creation ILKA LINES OF CONDUCT Maud Blandel
distribution & production Distribution Concept and choregraphy Maud Blandel Light (distribution in progress) Sound (distribution in progress) Scenography (distribution in progress) With Gabriela Gómez Abaitua, Maya Masse, Romane Peytavin, Caroline Savi Marsalo Administration et production Alexandra Nivon Production and international distribution Parallèle - Platform for young international creation production Production I L K A Coproductions Arsenic - centre d'art scénique contemporain - Lausanne (CH), ICI centre chorégraphique national Montpellier - Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée / Direction Christian Rizzo (production en cours), PACT Zollverein - Essen, La Passerelle - Scène nationale de Gap, Alpes du sud Supports Ville de Lausanne, Pro Helvetia (production en cours) Residencies La Villette, Ballet du nord - CCN de Roubaix - Hauts-de-France, PACT Zollverein - Essen, La Passerelle - Scène nationale de Gap, Alpes du sud 2
THE RESEARCH STORYLINES THE RESEARCH La linea - Osvaldo Cavandoli «A reasonable man walks straight ahead, tells us Le Corbusier, because he has a goal, he knows where he is going.» In his work «A brief history of lines», the British anthropologist Tim Ingold claims that the straight line has prevailed as the icon of modernity. Not only does it incarnate authority, certitude, and a certain sense of orientation, it also indicates the triumph of rational thought over the vicissitudes of the natural world. And yet, the last decades have been witness to profound dysfuntions of reason: authority has revealed itself as a mask for intolerance, certitudes have nourished a series of conflicts, and orientations have tangled themselves into dead-ends. The approach I ve been following since 2014 was born from the desire to examine these mutations (social, political, aesthetic), through the notion of practice. Through a historical approach (studying the evolutions of a phenomena over a defined period of time), the idea is to draw out characteristics and modalities, in order to define what a practice produces above all on a social body. Designed as a series of autonomous choreographic pieces, the research entitled Storylines builds the common frame to different works. Uniting these projects is the common proposal, through the study of practice, to question the modern reflex of reading strange behaviour practices as fetishes or other worshipping cults, and thus to grasp, through a pragmatic approach, what kind of behaviours a group of shared beliefs can produce, from the point of view of the practitioner as well as the observer (us spectators). After TOUCH DOWN, which investigated the touchline of American universities with the aim of observing the production of popular icons, LINES OF CONDUCT will be the second part of this research. 3 Maud Blandel
INTENTIONS LINES OF CONDUCT Everywhere they drop anchor, they soon put up fetishes, that is to say that in all the peoples they encounter, they see worshippers of objects that are nothing. Since of course the Moderns have to explain away the strangeness of a worship that cannot be justified objectively, they endow the savages with a mental state that has internal instead of external references. Bruno Latour, Sur le culte moderne des dieux faitiches Belief. A word that had to be invented one day to grasp what is inside, a factor in all strange, not to say foreign, behaviour. A word which, even more so than what it refers to (or sometimes denounces), describes much about the person using it. With this new project, LINES OF CONDUCT, we are choosing to seize this notion of belief, through the evolution of tarantism. Initially a popular rite during which women bitten by a tarantula were exorcised through dance, the practice changed to become a religious ritual after Christianity invaded the South of Italy (dance then became a way to obtain the Grace of Saint-Paul). Today, its full power reduced to that of tourist attraction, the use of belief only constitutes the foundations of a vague and far-away yet indispensible mythological dimension of a summer festival in the Puglia region. From its telluric origins to its festive expression, including its sacred nature tarantism illustrates an entire phase in the evolution of cultural power relations. The same ritual that took several days to ward off evil spirits in a trance-like state, changed into a series of short, precisely calibrated manifestations: from its frame to its length, this practice has undergone an industrialisation, turning the spectacle into a ritual without recipient. With LINES OF CONDUCT, we will thus address the question of the dramatic shape of spectacle, but above all the notion of belief. The question here is not what we believe in, but more so the forms belief(s), can take, and the behaviours these imply. A quest from earth to sky, through which we will strive to move heaven and earth, in order to ask our question as spectators: beyond the notion of belief, what is entertaining in the sacred, and what is sacred in entertaining? 4
intentions OF realisation FROM STAGE DESIGN TO CHOREOGRAPHIC MEASURES The piece will propose to reinvest what the three aforementioned versions of tarantism share, that is to say: a short sequence of precisely rhythmic, choreographic steps. As a formal piece for three dancers, the project will try to maintain such an intact dance motif: thus, only the frames (the lines of the lighting and stage design) in which these are performed will be altered: similarly to a game of hopscotch, in which the drawings imply the rules of the game, the design will transform the stage, which will offer the dancers a space in which the changing lines continuously redefine new rules of conduct. The project thus relies on 2 major elements: - a choreographic script based on a theme (a repeated motif, developed through repetition) - the design of the stage (consisting essentially of the changing lines of light on the floor) More precisely, the dance will be determined thanks to the near-musical partition of the design script. Starting in unison, each dancer will subsequently follow her own lines of conduct. Imagined as a canon, the strategy of the composition consists of shifting a same theme. It is only in the produced differential that we will sound out the links between spectacle of belief and spectacular belief. 5
team MAUD BLANDEL/choregrapher Trained in contemporary dance in Toulouse, Maud Blandel joins the first MA class in Scenic Arts Direction at la Manufacture HETSR in Lausanne. During her studies, she works with Robert Cantarella, Milo Rau, Jean-Yves Ruf and Franck Vercruyssen (TG Stan). She creates a first short piece called I would rather die than wear a dress, accompanied by the collective Das Plateau. In September 2013, she directs Ote donc le serpent que tu as dans ta culotte conférence-spectaculaire sur nos corps hystériques. The project represents the starting point of her research on knowledgetransmitting structures. Alongside this, she joins the artists Karim Bel Kacem and Thibaut Evrard on the project You will never walk alone, a conference-performance created at the Festival Belluard in Fribourg last July. They have since collaborated on the Sport Spectacle Project, developed at the Théâtre Saint-Gervais, for which they create CHEER LEADER in June 2015. Wishing to pursue her interrogations concerning the political representations of the female body, she creates TOUCH DOWN at the Arsenic in Lausanne before performing the piece in Geneva and in Marseille during the Festival Parallèle 2016. She was part of the artist s lab during Julidans in Amsterdam and will present a performance next July for the new edition of the Festival. She will assist Rachid Ouramdane for his next creation at the Opéra de Nancy with le Ballet de Lorraine. Maud Blandel is a resident artist at the Théâtre de Saint-Gervais in Geneva. 6
L'ÉQUIPE GABRIELA GÓMEZ ABAITUA / dancer Gabriela Abaitua got her dance education at the Real Conservatorio in Madrid. In 2004 she joined the Compañía Nacional de Danza, directed by Nacho Duato for three years. In 2010 she joined the Grand Théâtre de Genève where she danced pieces from choreographers like Sidi Larbi, Andonis Foniadakis, Ken Ozzola, Didy Veldman, Joëlle Bouvier, Michel Kelemenis and Emanuel Gat. As a freelance she collaborated with Antonio Ruz, Davy Brun, Amaury Lebrun and Víctor Jiménez; she danced for Angelin Preljoca s company. She also works as a guest teacher in companies like Preljocaj, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Aterballetto, Basel Ballet and Ballet de Lorraine. In 2016 she got engaged as a rehearsal director for the piece Tango at Ballet de Metz, she also teaches regularly at the Centre National de Danse in Paris. Gabriela started choreographing in 2013 with her solo Reste and continued with the creation of Nuit Flamenco with Rubén Molina, presented in 2016 at Café de la Danse in Paris. MAYA MASSE / dancer Maya was born in 1990 and graduated from the National Conservatoire of Music and Dance of Lyon in 2011. In 2012, she danced for the opening for the Olympic games in London in a choreography by Akram Khan. In 2013, she worked with Raphaëlle Boitel in the show L'Oublié(e) and the MacBeth opera of Giuseppe Verdi at the Scala of Milan. In 2014, she was trained for the creation Troublyn by Jan Fabre. In 2015, she participated to the creation Cheer Leader for the Think Tank Theatre co-directed by Karim Bel Kacem and Maud Blandel. Lately, she worked with Christian Rizzo ICI CCN for the show Syndrome Ian created for Montpellier Danse in June 2016. She is working with Maud Blandel since 2014 and her first creation Touch Down. 7
ROMANE PEYTAVIN / dancer Romane studied contemporary dance at the Conservatoire Régional of Montpeller and joined the Bachelor of La Manufacture-HETSR in Lausanne. She was trained by Thomas Hauert, Martin Kilvady, Sheley Senter and Mark Lorimer and learned singing, theatre and shaolin. While studying she worked with several choreographers such as David Zambrano, Fabrice Mazliag and participated to the recreation of Set and reset by Trisha Brown. She is preparing two new creations with Deborah Hay and Alejandro Ahmed. CAROLINE SAVI MARSALO / dancer Trained in contemporary dance, Caroline Savi is graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de danse from Paris. Following her dance and journalism studies, she creates her company Don Sorsa in 2009 and runs her first creation project named Corps de sève. Then, she met the choregrapher Juha Marsalo and became the interpret of Scène d'amour, Prologue, Karhu. In 2012, they started together the LaFlux Company and develop together the project Open Danse in France and abroad. Caroline Savi is also interpret for other choregraphs as Raphaelle Boitel, Eric Arnal Burtshy, Lionel Hoche, Ismael Ivo, and Tango Ostinato. She was on an internship in 2013 with Wim Vandekeybus - Ultima Vez. She danced in several operas, such as the Opera Comique in Paris, in Vienne and at the Scala in Milano. She joined Maud Blandel / ILKA for the creation 2018 Lignes de conduite. The premiere will take place at the Arsenic in Lausanne in April. 8
WORKING schedule sommer 2017 Rome and Napoli > research residency - learning of Tarentelles dances from 2 nd to 13 rd October 2017-2 weeks ICICCN Montpellier > working residency from 27 th November to 9 th December 2017-3 weeks La Villette > working residency from 11 th to 16 th December 2017-1 week CCN de Roubaix - Ballet du Nord > working residency from 2 nd to 18 th February 2018-2 weeks Arsenic - centre d art scénique contemporain, Lausanne (CH) > working residency from 23 rd February to 3 rd March 2018-1 week La Passerelle - Scène nationale de Gap, Alpes du Sud > working residency from 1 st to 15 th April 2018-3 weeks Arsenic - centre d art scénique contemporain, Lausanne (CH) > final working residency from 17 th to 22 th April 2018 Arsenic - centre d art scénique contemporain, Lausanne (CH) > creation distribution schedule January 2019 festival Parallèle 9 - Marseille 9
past creation TOUCH DOWN [LIGNE DE TOUCHE] Once, the Gods of the stadium said: "Here, young ladies, here is our time-out. Use it right.» The teenage girls stretched out their hands and accepted the gift. But were they even aware of the burden they had inherited: the killing of time (through "entertainment") which may also mean the time of their own killing? What if the masterpiece by Stravinsky had something to do with a cheerleader? What if a parallel existed between a human offering of the Rite of Spring and the tragic fate of a female supporter? Confronting high culture and popular culture, "noble" and "ig-noble", Maud Blandel stages five dancers in a ballet with exacerbated physicality, where bodies confront themselves to the power of music and light. In the limelight, opposite the Gods of the stadium and her delirious fans, the cheerleader performs a series of acts. But what ideology is she the icon of? Twisting up to a desecrating point the patterns of her codified performance, Touch Down redraws contemporary folklore, where anxiety emerges in front of the sacrifice of the female body. Josua Hotz 10
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contacts Cie ILKA Parallèle - Plateforme for young international creation Artistic director : Maud Blandel +41 78 620 06 80 Administration and production : Alexandra Nivon ilka-prod@hotmail.com +41 76 737 50 08 Direction : Lou Colombani +33 6 82 14 24 26 Administration and production : Maxime Kottmann +33 6 60 38 80 95 www.plateformeparallele..com