In Con forts fleuve created by Boris Charmatz in 1999, the bodies are completely covered, included the face which is masked by a pullover. Nudity is a means of restoring the dancing body to its original state. In contemporary dance, the body of the dancer is sometimes also naked. Any body can thus become a medium, an ally and the main symbol of an aesthetic engagement. In his proposals, the body of Dubois is no longer characterised by its physical aspects, but by the artistic setting which it expresses. The choreographer has also performed the role of the Faun, in response to Nijinsky's legendary choreography L’après-midi d’un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun), which is generally performed by much more conventionally beautiful dancers. With Pour tout l’or du monde., I wanted it to be like a chronicle of a martyr, a summary of war…” Olivier Dubois participates in a battle of bodies intending to conquer a place, and in particular on a stage. Referring to his first choreography, he writes: “I'm mounting resistance. In his first creations, he confronts the exhibition of his body and what this means for his sense of privacy. The dancer and choreographer Olivier Dubois is himself "generously" proportioned. What is happening with our bodies today?”Ĭontemporary dance thus uses atypical and varied bodies. Contemporary dance involves a diversity of dancing bodies, as Raimund Hoghe puts it: “I ask the question – to what extent and how, during the Third Reich, exclusion was possible, and to what extent and how it is possible today. The ideal body of the dancer is thus put into perspective and questioned. In this piece, a dancer covers herself in flour to become an impeccable white swan – this unavoidable referent of the Western ballet culture. Orlin criticises the ideological use of physical criteria, in particular in Daddy, I've seen this piece six times before and I still don’t know why they’re hurting each other. Questioning representations of the body also concerns the South African choreographer Robyn Orlin. Here, black skin and a white hunchback become an artistic and poetic medium. This choreography, which brings Africa and the West face-to-face, involves bodies that contemporary dance has gradually accepted. In Sans titre, his body communicates with that of the Congolese dancer Faustin Linyekula. His body subverts all the ideals attributed to the dancer's body. Raimund Hoghe, the German choreographer and dancer, has a hunchback. He thinks that “physical handicaps shock people more than violence on stage” and suggests “an appeal for imperfection”. Raimund Hoghe wanted “to throw his body into the struggle”. It is a body ideal found in contemporary dance, but one from which other choreographers have wanted to emancipate themselves. This body also makes reference to Greek statuary it is sculptural and falls within the criteria of “traditional” beauty. It expresses a virile animality which, according to the choreographer, “travels to the interior of a volcano of extreme flesh”. In d’Indicibles Violences, choreographed by Claude Brumachon, the body of the dancers is a virtuosic, sporty, agile body. Annie Suquet, “Le corps dansant, un laboratoire de la perception”, in Histoire du corps – Les mutations du regard, Le XXe siècle, Seuil, 2006, p. It will also look at how the body dances, whether it is an "expert" or an amateur, and the forms of its presence on stage. But it is also the way of showing a body that changes: from complete nudity to the completely hidden or covered body. This thema of “corps dansants” (dancing bodies) provides an opportunity to question the variety of bodies offered by contemporary dance, from the glorious bodies to the “ungainly” bodies, and the greater or lesser visibility of certain bodies. Depending on his style and his aesthetic concerns, he will not use the same bodies or thus the same performers. He seeks to cultivate his awareness of his own body, while the choreographer seeks to draw on the body's different competences. Moreover, the practice, the perception and the experimentation with the body are decisive factors in the work of the contemporary dancer. They want to break away from the established ideals and to question what defines, but also limits, the “dancing body”. We now favour a body that is less constrained, able to engage in multiple experiences.Ĭontemporary choreographers and dancers seek to subvert an overly trained dancing body. This process echoes the transformations in the representations of the body in industrialised societies from the 1960s onwards. It's about encouraging an “exploration of the body as a sensitive and thinking material”. One of the issues in contemporary dance consists of seeing, approaching and working with the body differently than in the past.
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