Videoing live performances has injected a certain je ne sais quoi into dance for a number of French performers and choreographers. Now they're bringing their work to Cork for a Vidéodanse spectacular, writes Christine Madden
WHAT sort of person do you become if you never grow up? Authority figures, from adults to teachers, are always trying to stuff you with dry information, make you responsible, monitor your behaviour in public, see that you behave with decency and complain if you act too silly. If you ignore all these boring instructions, what happens? You might turn into a French choreographer or filmmaker or, in the best of all possible worlds, both at the same time. In fact, after watching some of the offerings of Vidéodanse, you'll be convinced: none of these people ever paid the slightest attention to what their elders and betters told them, shaking fingers threateningly. They might have taken an interest in the wagging fingers, though.
This is the first year that Vidéodanse will cross the water from the Centre Pompidou in Paris to Cork to feature in the Fête de la Danse. Now in its third year, this annual festival of contemporary dance from francophone countries has presented unusual and exciting work from France and Quebec. The expertise and imaginative approaches taken by the companies and choreographers who have visited Ireland through this festival have provided a fresh perspective from societies where contemporary dance is very popular and highly respected.
Vidéodanse first started up in 1982, when Marcel Bonnaud, the director of shows at the Centre Pompidou, Paris's world-famous centre for the contemporary arts, asked Michèle Bargues to start a festival of dance film, then a new and highly innovative art form. Bargues, who had, as a sociologist, concentrated on festival audiences, readily agreed. "It was a coup de foudre - love at first sight," said Bargues of her first encounter with dance film. Apparently the public felt the same way; the first Vidéodanse became a resounding success.
Dance by nature is "ephemeral", as Bargues describes it: unlike plays or music, which are accessible to the large sections of society that can read the notation of either, dance flickers into life briefly on the stage, and then disappears. Dance notation, such as Laban, is like a cuneic alphabet for the layman. But filming dance captures that moment, and, as it provides a record of the piece, it also transforms it and creates a new genre.
In the 23 years of the festival, many developments have emerged. Merce Cunningham, for instance, initiated a fascinating new trend with his technique of strapping computer sensors to the body to recreate movement on the screen. And, more recently, the camera has taken to the streets to conduct experiments and document phenomena such as hip-hop. One of the films in the 32 being shown in various locations in Cork, Faire kiffer les anges (Hanging with Angels), depicts the hip-hop scene in French suburbs - quite different to that of the American variety.
"In the cité, what the French call the suburbs, there's nothing to do," explains Estelle Dumortier, programme manager of the Fête de la Danse. "They found hip-hop could save them." The film, shown unfortunately without subtitles, shows interviews with the dancers - but fortunately, it's not just talk. This particular brand of hip-hop comes from the North African elements of the French population, for whom dance is "very, very important".
"These are people outside of the society," says Dumortier. "It took 10 years for this hip-hop to become so popular and to reach audiences outside of the cité." In putting together a spin-off version of the extensive Centre Pompidou Vidéodanse - which this year presents 140 dance films - Dumortier chose Faire kiffer les anges and the others to fit with the main festival's theme of Dance and Identity. With nearly daily screenings in three different locations in Cork over the course of the Fête - all of them free of charge, as with the original Vidéodanse in Paris - Dumortier has grouped the various films by theme to create more than 20 mini-programmes, such as Dance in France. Elsewhere - Travel Writing, Images of the Body and Nudity, Dance and Visual Art, Dance and Music and Humour and Fantasy, among others.
Two of the films shown under the heading Humour and Fantasy, for example, come from the choreographer Philippe Découfle, famous for that Chanel perfume advert in which the woman throws open the shutters and shouts "Égoïste!". "Découfle has a circus background, and he's also a director of film," says Dumortier. This figures strongly in his film Abracadabra, which explores the body as a physiological entity in suprising ways, as well as staging picturesque, amusing antics in late 19th-century circus-style manner.
Abracadabra also exemplifies the extraordinary creativity of the genre in its stunning use of the filmic possibilities of light, colour, set, speed, perspective and creative editing. Some of the videos are stage productions that have been filmed, but most of them were created for this hybrid genre that opens exponential possibilities to the quirky physical imagination, exploration and wit of which the French are masters.
Aatt-enen-tionon, by choreographer Boris Charmatz, plays with these possibilities as well in placing three partially clad dancers (you'll have to guess which part) in three cubic stage-spaces, one on top of the other. Almost impossible to present live to an audience, which could never watch and grasp everything all at once, this claustrophobic piece watches people struggling with the barriers of contemporary urban life as if they were in a petri dish.
Breakdance Attitude Le Cercle also explores the streets by following breakdancers preparing for a trip to Miami to take part in local street-dance competitions, and Lourdes - Las Vegas is a "very strange and interesting film", says Dumortier. "It's not a record of a performance, nor is it a performance, but the people play as if they were performing. While on a residency with Arne Sierens in Holland, choreographer Alain Platel decided to use dance to look at society, and targeted youth. They interviewed young people, asking them: 'How do you feel about your mum, your dad, about politicians, about society? How do you feel your body in that?' The young people try to pretend they are adults, to behave as adults. It's not about dance, really, but about attitude." Vive la France, vive l'adolescence.
Vidéodanse runs from February 16 - 25, except Sunday, at the Cork Butter Museum/Firkin Crane and Triskel Arts Centre. All screenings are free. For programmes and more information, contact the Institute for Choreography and Dance, tel: (021) 450 7487
