From dance hall to theatre

Thanks to the open-minded attitude and experimental spirit embracing various styles and traditions, contemporary dance keeps evolving and surprising the audience by reintroducing movement vocabulary from certain communities that mainstream audiences might not think belongs on the conventional stage. 

IAN: 1970s club dance proved legit in an opera house. Photo/Marc Coudrais

At the recent Biennale de la danse in Lyon, choreographer and visual artist Christian Rizzo, director of the National Choreography Centre in Montpellier, continued his research into community dances and paid tribute to the post-punk English song-writer and musician Ian Curtis, whose epilepsy and depression led to his suicide at the age of 24. On the main stage of the Opera de Lyon, the audience watching “Le syndrome Ian” was mesmerised not only by the at-times almost psychedelic groove, but also the “angular and jerking bodies” that Rizzo selected to capture. The dancers were almost all the time seen in silhouette and smoke added a stark contrast to the neon-lighted architectural installations Rizzo created. Staged in a cold and unfriendly proscenium theatre, it seemed as though the audience was observing from afar while also being drawn in to the story – and those of us born before the 1980s travelled back to our clubbing days while experiencing the English artist’s agony.
A few days later at Le Teboggan arts centre in a suburb of Lyon, the audience was intrigued by “DFS”, a new work by the highly in-demand artist duo Cecilia Bengolea and Francois Chaignaud. Curious about and fascinated with the dancehall tradition, the former went to Jamaica and joined a group of male gangster dancers. Meanwhile, the latter studied the traditional Georgian vocal polyphony that requires its performers to sing and dance at the same time. Back in France, they experimented by combining the two with their dancers who, notwithstanding their diverse backgrounds, were not trained in either root and of course couldn’t perfect it. Two Jamaican artists were also invited to France, but only one could obtain his visa and so the other appeared in a video excerpt on the screen.

DFS: Jamaican dancehall and Georgian polyphony made their way into French contemporary dance. 

Photo/Christian Ganet

“DFS” was the result of these two threads of research and looked and sounded in part more like a demonstration than a finished work. It offered yet more proof that although these physical and aural traditions are from different cultures – continents, in fact – contemporary dance choreographers and directors like Bengolea and Chaignaud, can find ways for them to share the same stage while respecting each other’s traditions. It was been a learning experience for them and showed those of us who witnessed it that contemporary dance is indeed limitless.
 
FOR MORE DETALS
- on these two works, visit www.ChristianRizzo.com and www.VlovajobPru.com. Both are in French and English.
- The writer’s trip was supported by the Biennale de la danse’s press office and the French Embassy in Thailand.