gogoparis.com » Dance

Merce Cunningham Legacy Tour at Théâtre de la Ville

kvdb — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:21:10 +0000

Tickets remain for shows in the second programme ‘Towards Infinity’ (20-23 Dec) of Merce Cunningham Company’s ‘Legacy Tour’, planned by Merce Cunningham before he died and opening at the Théâtre de la Ville on Thursday. Experience the dance master’s pastoral frolic RainForest (1968), immortalized by Andy Warhol’s silver and helium pillows; for the choreographer they evoked a landscape of tropical forest; Duets (1980), accompanied by John Cage’s jostling pieces for percussions, brilliantly reveals Cunningham’s acute understanding of the specificity of the duo, the cornerstone of choreographic writing. Finally BIPED (1999) crowns the last chapter opened by the choreographer as he started using computer programmes to help him imagine in the real space of the stage figures articulated, combines and placed in space in the most unforeseen ways. The piece reflects a whole life’s work unceasingly tending towards infinity.
Théâtre de la Ville, 2 pl du Châtelet, 4th. M° Châtelet. www.theatredelaville-paris.com/

© Stéphanie Berger

Danser Sa Vie at the Centre Pompidou

kvdb — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:26:01 +0000

Opening on Wed is this pioneering exhibition dedicated to the connections between the visual arts and dance, from the 1900s to today. Between Apollonian aspiration and Dionysian explosion of life, dance was a crucial fulcrum of the modernist revolution in aesthetics. With pioneers such as Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan, with the genius of Vaslav Nijinsky, an unprecedented rupture took place in the art of the body in movement. This revolution had a decisive influence on the development of the visual arts, which have since then continuously maintained a close and fruitful relationship with dance that goes far further and deeper than the mere pictorial representation of the ballet dancer familiar to the preceding century. The exhibition is accompanied by a cinema programme Vidéodanse, presenting a history of 20th and 21st century dance through 250 films that shine the spotlight on the work of 150 choreographers. (Consult the programme here.)
Wed 23 Nov-Mon 2 April
Centre Pompidou, rue Beaubourg, 4th. 01.44.78.12.33. www.centrepompidou.fr

Trisha Brown, Planes, 1968
Photograph attributed to Waléry, L’Après-Midi d’un faune, 1912

‘L’Anatomie de la Sensation’ by Wayne McGregor

kvdb — Thu, 19 May 2011 14:05:05 +0000

Star London choreographer Wayne McGregor returns to the Paris Opéra, after ‘Genus’ in 2007, with this new creation, inspired by the work of Francis Bacon. McGregor draws on the forms, colours and textures of the paintings to move beyond the images and explore the expressive potential of the human body. The musical inspiration for the piece is provided by the composer Mark Anthony Turnage, whose Blood on the Floor also takes its title from a Bacon painting. Also, check out McGregor’s choreography for Thom Yorke in Radiohead’s clip ‘Lotus Flower’, below, off the latest album ‘The King of Limbs’.
World premiere: 29 June, runs through to 15 July.
Opéra Bastille, pl de la Bastille, 12th. M° Bastille. 08.92.89.90.90. www.operadeparis.fr

Radiohead ‘Lotus Flower’ from Trim Editing on Vimeo.

‘Rain’ by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker

kvdb — Thu, 19 May 2011 08:21:46 +0000

‘Rain’ by the contemporary choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker enters the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet, and opens next week. Rooted in an exhilarating minimalist score by Steve Reich, performed live, and with costumes by fellow Belgian Dries Van Noten, ‘Rain’ is a powerful and sensitive work that Keersmaeker considers her most successful fusion between dance and music.
Wed 25 May-Tue 7 June.
Palais Garnier, pl de l’Opéra, 9th. Mº Opéra. 08.92.89.90.90. www.operadeparis.fr/

Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-St-Denis

kvdb — Sat, 07 May 2011 07:31:42 +0000

This resolutely international contemporary dance festival takes place throughout the month of May in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris, inviting companies and choreographers from throughout Europe, but also Canada, Japan, China, Brazil, the US or Australia. Some highlights include the Brussels based American choreographer Daniel Linehan‘s new dance performance ‘Zombie Aporia’ (Tue 17-Thu 19 May, 7pm, CND). Composed of many small pieces, like a rock music concert, or a book of poetry, the performance breaks down the boundaries that separate body from voice, sound from image, rhythm from meaning. The NYC company Radical Low returns to the festival to present a new piece ‘guns/roses’ (Sat 21, 5pm; Sun 22, 6pm. La Chaufferie), a duo inspired by the world of sports, a deeper look into the nature of performance, with movement as the protagonist. Sharing the program with Radical Low, Trajal Harrell, also from New York, presents his piece ‘Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church’, a solo which attempts to answer the question ‘What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the voguing ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?’. London dance iconoclast Nigel Charnock, a founding member of DV8, presents solo piece ‘One Dixon Road’ about his life, his loves and his death (Sat 28, 9.30pm; Sun 29, 7.30pm. Nouveau Theatre Montreuil). Find the complete festival programme here.
Until 29 May.
www.rencontreschoregraphiques.com/

IFRAME Embed for Youtube

‘Pina’ by Wim Wenders

kvdb — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:25:46 +0000

The most exciting film out this past week is surely the world’s first 3D arthouse film, Wim Wenders‘ ‘Pina’. This feature-length dance film in 3D, with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, features the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009. Wenders explains that “Only through Pina’s Tanztheater have I learned to value movements, gestures, attitudes, behaviour, body language, and through her work learned to respect them… What treasure lies within our bodies, to be able to express itself without words, and how many stories can be told without saying a single sentence.”
www.pina-film.de/en/

Festival Hautes Tensions at La Villette

kvdb — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:02:59 +0000

A new festival at La Villette opens next week, and presents a high-energy mix of hip-hop and other new urban dance forms and contemporay circus. Innovative performances from many French companies, but also contemporary circus from Finland, German breakdancers and puppeteers from the Congo, and including some free outdoor events on the weekends. We’re looking forward to the ‘immersive performance’ by Catalan choreographer Roger Bernat/FFF, ‘Domini Public’, or Public Domain, dispenses with the actor and makes the audience the only participant. The spectators become part of a fiction without the need of exposing themselves as individuals on a stage (Sat 16-Sun 17 Apr). More info, in French, and the complete program here.
Wed 6-Sun 17 Apr.
performances Wed-Sat, 7pm & 9pm: Sun 3.30pm & 5pm.
www.villette.com/

Festival EXIT 2011

kvdb — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:36:19 +0000

Creteil’s fantastic annual festival EXIT returns this month with its typically avant-garde program of international theatre, dance and music. A highlight this year is a 100% Parisian project, a collaboration between digital producers Dalbin, fashion designer JC de Castelbajac and musical outfit Nouvelle Vague, for a performance and homage to French artist Robert Malaval ‘Ceremony’ (Fri 18, Sat 19 Mar, 9pm, 10€, res 01 45 13 19 19, book your ticket here). Other highlights include the multimedia play in English ‘Bellona: Destroyer of Cities’ by New York theatre director Jay Scheib, and UK contemporary choreographer and dancer Wayne McGregor and his Random Dance company with FAR (co-produced by London’s Sadler’s Wells). Inspired by the controversial Age of Enlightenment, FAR mines an era that first placed ‘a body in question’…
Thu 10-Sun 20 Mar.
Maison des Arts Créteil, pl Salvador Allende, 94000 Créteil. M° Créteil-Préfecture. www.maccreteil.com/

Yvonne Rainer in Paris

kvdb — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 10:23:27 +0000

The post-modern US dancer and choreographer, who trained with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham in the 60s, presents her two latest works tonight and tomorrow at the Centre Pompidou. The quartet ‘Spiraling Down’ draws inspiration from multiple materials: movements of football players, old films, Facebook, antimilitary photographs… ‘Good Sports 2′ takes a series of photographs Rainer sourced from the Sports pages of the New York Times as a starting point. The photographs are used as material for seven dancers to invent an original choreographic language which oscillates between abstraction and a concrete reference to sporting movements.
8.30pm. 10€/14€. Buy your tickets here.
Grande Salle, Centre Pompidou, rue Beaubourg, 4th. www.centrepompidou.fr/

Eonnagata

kvdb — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:57:27 +0000

‘Eonnagata’, last year’s triumphant production from London’s Sadler’s Wells, is in Paris till the end of the week. The production brings together three of the world’s foremost creative minds: internationally acclaimed dancer Sylvie Guillem, world-renowned theatre-maker Robert Lepage and award-winning choreographer Russell Maliphant. The piece tells the story of the Chevalier d’Éon, Charles de Beaumont – diplomat, writer, swordsman and a member of the King’s Secret, a network of spies under the control of Louis XV. De Beaumont was perhaps the first spy to use transvestitism in the furtherance of his duties and until the day he died his true gender was a source of constant speculation, even provoking public bets in the late 18th century. For this remarkable collaboration, Guillem, Lepage and Maliphant draw not only from their respective backgrounds, but also from the ancient Kabuki technique of Onnegata – in which male actors portray female roles in an extremely stylised fashion. The elaborate costumes of Louis XV’s court are by Alexander McQueen.
Until 9 Jan. Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, 15 av Montaigne, 8th. Mº Alma-Marceau. 01.49.52.50.50. www.theatrechampselysees.fr/