G. Delahaye YVAN VAFFAN Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble Groupe Emile Dubois Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble Groupe Emile Dubois
recreation The 8th of January 2013 at MC2 : Grenoble (France) production Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble with the support of MC2: Grenoble CONTACTS Jean Ripahette / Directeur de projets CCN de Grenoble + 00 33 4 76 00 79 74 > + 00 33 6 63 06 99 11 > ripahette@ccng.fr Presse nationale / Opus 64 Valérie Samuel and Arnaud Pain + 00 33 1 40 26 77 94 > a.pain@opus64.com Presse locale / CCN de Grenoble Hélène Azzaro + 00 33 4 76 00 79 82 > azzaro@ccng.fr Communication / CCN de Grenoble Caroline Brossard + 00 33 4 76 00 79 77 > brossard@ccng.fr
By revisiting this piece first performed in 1984 and never again since then, I m pursuing a slightly crazy dream of recreating one of my choreographies, alternating with a new piece, every year. I ve always felt the need to re-experience my pieces, to turn them into a repertoire, to connect them to one another, to challenge the ephemera, to bring my work face-to-face with time. Yvan Vaffan is a piece which, at the time, was called tribal, truculent and even theatrical. I d like to go back to it in this same vein, whilst at the same time looking for other secret mechanisms within it, so that I can measure its ability to enter into a free dialogue with the times in which we re living. To do this, I m really glad to be getting ready to look into it again, this time with performers most of whom weren t even born when it was first performed, to reinvent it with them, to tune its rhythms in to what s going on today. I believe that this is the fate of dance - there s always this work of tireless rebirth to be done. The tribe tag with which s dancers have long been labelled can probably be traced back to the Aventures d Ivan Vaffan (Adventures of Ivan Vaffan), in 1984. People called them a tribe because there a boys and girls all pretending to be uncontrollable warriors and Amazons from who knows where in Mongolia, rigged out like barbarians, bearded, dressed in rags and paste, brandishing huge flags, although it s more as though they re fidgeting rather being waved in any warlike way. There was joy, ecstasy and prayer - or at least rites which seemed not too far from it - fondling, the whole thing a bit of a hodgepodge, but with an ability to soothe itself before setting off to conquer some sensual incongruity, or even a word of love. The press wondered about the morals and rites of this strange horde whose members were spent all their time embracing enthusiastically, grappling with one another, feeling each other up, discovering each other, with all the astonishment of children. At the time there was talk of the Gallotta body language and spirit. The choreographer muddies the waters of sex and redistributes caresses noted the writer Hervé Guibert. Almost three decades on, is still pursuing his slightly crazy dream of recreating one of his first choreographies every year. I still feel the need», he says, to re-experience my pieces, to turn them into a repertoire, to connect them to one another, to challenge the ephemera of which they re made up, to bring my work face-to-face with time. So, to do this, I m glad to be getting ready to question Yvan Vaffan again with performers most of whom weren t even born when it was first performed, to reinvent the piece with them, to tune its rhythms in to what s going on today. So he sees it as a matter of seeing how the elation of the nineteen eighties stands up in the less carefree times in which we re living, where the flag of joy is flying at half-mast; how we can still find a way of redistributing» not only caresses but also flags, borders, identities and intimacy. Ultimately it s about seeing how his new tribe will tackle things when it comes to who sits where on the sofa, and the whole thing has elements of both naughtiness and anti-authoritarian enthusiasm. Claude-Henri Buffard
Interview with by Claude-Henri Buffard (december 2012) After Racheter la Mort des Gestes - Chroniques chorégraphiques 1 (Redeeming Death With Movement Choreographic Chronicles), you ve chosen to recreate Yvan Vaffan, a piece which is part of your own repertoire, from 1984. Out of the roughly seventy pieces which make up this repertoire, what are your criteria for choosing to put a particular choreography on again? There are always a number of reasons. For instance, I might think that a particular piece is more emblematic than another, or that it ll work better in terms of a dialogue with the present than another one might, or that the spirit of some choreographies feels more likely to work with the company I ve got at the time. And so on. The starting point for Yvan Vaffan was that Didier Deschamps asked me about it when he was running the Ballet de Lorraine, only before the project came off he was appointed Director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot, so I thought we d have to give up on the idea. But Didier begged me to carry on and have a fresh crack at the piece with my own company. I didn t need to be asked twice because, at the end of the day, it s a piece that intrigues me. It intrigues you? In what way? To me it feels a bit out-of-step. Chronologically, it comes between Yves P. and Mammame, but it was only from that point onwards that people started talking about my company as a tribe. People saw us as a very close-knit group which d come out of nowhere, a bit uncontrollable, a bit iconoclastic, and that set us apart in the French choreographic landscape. The reason I say it s out-of-step is because although it s emblematic of my work, at the same time it s been slightly overlooked up until now - even by ourselves, so now I d like to compare the tribal aspect with the way things are now, in 2013. Not all of your choreographies come about in the same way. To start with it might be about wanting to pay tribute to a particular figure, or choosing a guiding spirit (mythological, historical, literary) for the creation of the show or, on the other hand, you might feel like letting your inspiration come directly from your dancers working together in the studio. How did Yvan Vaffan come about? I was looking for a legendary kind of story - I wanted to use an epic, a big choreographic gesture, to talk about the society I was living in so, as I couldn t find one, I made it up. I created a story and a central character - I needed that because the new dance hadn t yet been accepted, the audience needed something to latch onto. I knew that by using a story the way they do in the cinema we could coax them into our artistic territory.
At the risk of muddying the waters? Although I ve nothing against the idea of muddying the waters in theory, actually, on the contrary, it was all about making the audience want to take a bite and give this new choreographic fruit a try. The character and the story dragged them into enjoying this contemporary dance which they d felt was too hard to get into. Once we d got to that point, they found it much easier to follow me as I flicked back and forth between narration and abstraction. Three decades on, what are you hoping to do with this piece? Find your way back into it as exactly as possible? Remodel it? First of all I m looking to find my way back into it, as you do when you go back to somewhere from your childhood. Right down to the tiniest details. But obviously, if, as happens with memories, I were to find that it d got smaller, I d try to enlarge it. What s the exciting thing about this process of recreation for the choreographer? I m extraordinarily lucky, in a way even the great film directors I admire aren t - if I feel the need I can go back and make alterations to a piece even at a distance of many years: a sequence, a little problem with the timing or setting, a slight defect in a transition. There s actually something really exciting about every stage and already, just seeing the piece again on video and saying to yourself that it s not obsolete; then putting it back onto its feet, rolling it out in three dimensions with the new dancers. I love seeing them finding their own ways of interpreting the movements for a work which to them sees so far away to start with. In Yvan Vaffan, I love the way they re learning another way of dancing, finding a rawer, more physical kind of behaviour, with an energy which is closer to that of performers. They need to hang onto their natural elegance as dancers and allow the animal part of themselves which this piece requires to come through. It s always this swinging back and forth which has been my concern - and that s still true today. What do these dancers most of whom - as we re so fond of saying - weren t even born when the piece was first performed, have that the generation which first performed didn t, and vice versa? I wouldn t talk about this in terms of there being more or less or anything. Back in 1984, most of the company s dancers came from the theatre or the street. The boys had a fierceness, a power and an instinct which were all still intact. The girls were more traditional dancers, so by working with the boys they found a new way of performing on stage. Nowadays they re all trained dancers. For me, working with Mathilde Altaraz, it s all about finding the piquancy of this piece again, the constant interaction between elegance and triviality.
Distribution <choreography> < reconstruction of the piece and choreography assistant > Mathilde Altaraz <music> Strigall <dramatist> Claude-Henri Buffard <costumes> Marion Mercier and Jacques Schiotto from Jean-Yves Langlais <costumes assistant > Anne Jonathan <scenography> Manuel Bernard and Jeanne Dard from Jean-Yves Langlais <lights> Manuel Bernard <dancers> Alexane Albert, Ximena Figueroa, Ibrahim Guétissi, Mathieu Heyraud, Georgia Ives, Bruno Maréchal, Cécile Renard, Gaetano Vaccaro, Thierry Verger, Stéphane Vitrano, Béatrice Warrand <production> Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble <with the support of> MC2 : Grenoble The Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble is financed by the Drac Rhône-Alpes / Ministère de la culture et de la communication, the Ville de Grenoble, the Département de l Isère, the Région Rhône-Alpes and supported by the Institut français for international tours. Calendar (in construction) > the 10 and 11 October 2014 Châteauvallon OLLIOULES (FRANCE) > from the 4 to the 6 November 2014 MC2 GRENOBLE (FRANCE) > the 2 and 3 December 2014 Bonlieu Scène nationale ANNECY (FRANCE) > the 5 December 2014 Théâtre Equilibre FRIBOURG (SWISS) > the 31 March and the 1rst April 2015 Opéra Théâtre des Arts ROUEN (FRANCE) > the 10 and 11 April 2015 Le Volcan LE HAVRE (FRANCE) > the 5 May 2015 Le Quai ANGERS (FRANCE)
After a trip to New York in which he discovered the work of Merce Cunningham, Lucinda Childs, Steve Paxton, Trisha Brown, Stuart Sherman and Yvonne Rainer, with Mathilde Altaraz founded the Émile Dubois Group in Grenoble in 1979, which, in 1981, joined the Grenoble Arts Centre as a dance creation unit. This was where Ulysse was born, a playful ballet using both classical and modern vocabularies. The Émile Dubois Group became the National Choreographic Centre and took up Ulysse again in 1984 for the Olympic Games Festival in Los Angeles, the American Dance Festival, the Holland Festival and the Avignon Festival. This was followed by: Les Aventures d Ivan Vaffan, Les Louves and Pandora. In 1986, was asked to be the director of the Grenoble Arts Centre renamed Le Cargo -, thereby becoming the first choreographer to be appointed to run this type of institution. then resigned as director of the Grenoble Arts Centre and published his first book, Mémoires d un dictaphone. During the 1991-1992 season, two choreographic creations combining dance, words and music were performed: La Légende de Roméo et Juliette, performed in November 1991 for the Albertville Olympic Arts Festival, and La Légende de Don Juan, performed in June 1992 for the Universal Exhibition in Seville, as a joint production with the Avignon Festival. then shot his second full-length film: l Amour en deux. 1993: publication of Les Yeux qui dansent (interviews with Bernard Raffalli). In July of the same year, recreated Ulysse at the Châteauvallon Festival. This was followed by a long international tour.
1994: Prémonitions, a new choreography created in Grenoble. 1995: at the request of Lyon Opéra Ballet, composed La Solitude du danseur, four solos performed to music by Erik Satie. Gallotta then worked with Nicholas Hytner and Sir Charles Mackerras to produce La Petite Renarde Rusée, an opera by Leos Janacek, performed by the Théâtre du Châtelet. At the Châteauvallon Festival, choreographed and performed the solo Hommage à Pavel Haas. In Grenoble, he created La Tête contre les fleurs for the company. This was followed in 1996 by Rue de Palanka, and in 1997, La Rue (an event for 3,000 spectators) and the creation of La Chamoule ou l Art d aimer. A longstanding collaboration was set up with Japan, at the invitation of the director Tadashi Suzuki: from 1997 to 2000, ran the dance department at the new Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre, training and directing a permanent company of eight Japanese performers. In 1998, also directed Le Ventriloque by Jean-Marie Piemme and Le Catalogue by Jean-Bernard Pouy, and wrote Pierre Chatel for l Adieu au siècle. created Les Variations d Ulysse for the Paris Opera Ballet, which was performed at the Opéra Bastille in 1995, and repeated in 1998. He also created Nosferatu in May 2002 to music by Pascal Dusapin; the ballet was performed again in spring 2006 at the Opéra Bastille. In 1999, he created Presque Don Quichotte at the Douai Hippodrome; the piece was also performed in Shizuoka, Japan. In 2000, he created l Incessante, a solo for Mathilde Altaraz, at the Avignon Festival as part of Le Vif du Sujet. In 2001, he created Les Larmes de Marco Polo for the Lyon International Biennial. In 2002, he created 99 duos at the Chaillot National Theatre, the first part of a trilogy on People. In 2003, he prepared Trois générations for the Avignon Festival, which was eventually cancelled. The piece, which includes children, former dancers and the Company, was performed at the Rampe d Echirolles in March 2004. It was performed in May of the same year at the Chaillot National Theatre and was repeated in November 2005. The same year, he worked with the director Hans-Peter Cloos to produce a show combining dance, theatre and music, Les sept pechés capitaux by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. In 2006, he created Des Gens qui dansent, the third part of the trilogy initiated by 99 duos and Trois Générations and, in 2007, he repeated his flagship piece from the 80s, Ulysse, under the title Cher Ulysse. In 2008, Bach dance experience with Mirella Giardelli and L Atelier des Musiciens du Louvre ; Armide by Lully with the conductor William Christie and the director Robert Carsen at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris; Chroniques chorégraphiques - season 1, a sort of stage movie that allowed him to pursue his poetic research into genres and people. In 2009, he created l Homme à tête de chou, with the original words and music by Serge Gainsbourg in a version recorded for the show by Alain Bashung. In April 2011, he performed a solo with Faut qu je danse! as a prelude to the recreation of his trio Daphnis é Chloé in Grenoble. In October 2011, again in Grenoble and with a piece for thirteen dancers, he took on Igor Stravinsky s Le Sacre du printemps, which he presented in April 2012 at the Chaillot National Theatre, Paris, along with Tumulte and Pour Igor in the first part. At the end of 2012, he is to present Racheter la mort des gestes - Chroniques chorégraphiques 1 at the Théâtre de la Ville, then at MC2; in early 2013, his recreation of Yvan Vaffan (first performed in 1984) will enable him to continue his work on the repertoire, alternating with his creations and thereby pleading for a certain continuity in art and seeking patiently to share with his audience the same story: the story of a shared artistic history and future. In October 2013, he directed the singer Olivia Ruiz in El Amor Brujo by Manuel de Falla, a piece presented together with Stravinsky s The Soldier s Tale, a show on which he worked together with the conductor Marc Minkowski and the director Jacques Osinski. For the 2014-2015 season, he is presenting The Rite and its Revolutions (including the first performance of Xenakis s Jonchaies and Six Pieces for Orchestra, op. 6 by Webern (Homage to Angela Davis) at the Philharmonie de Paris, and in June he is giving the first performance of The Stranger, based on the novel by Albert Camus at the MC2 in Grenoble.