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French dance audiences are divided between the conventionally staid Palais Garnier clique, the Théâtre de la Ville contemporary dance fan clan and those seeking something more original, enhanced with live music. The latter will be thrilled to learn that the Pompidou Center's contemporary music research center IRCAM has finally inaugurated an experimental dance lab under the direction of French choreographer François Raffinot, whose first collaboration "Play-Back," premieres as part of the Agora '99 Festival at IRCAM on June 7. With original live music for sax, bass and percussion blended with recorded electronic sounds composed by Edmund J. Campion and performed by the Ensemble TM+, "Play-Back" relates Salman Rushdie's fear-ridden years in seclusion following the publication of "The Satanic Verses" and the death sentence pronounced on him by the Islamic authorities in Teheran. Several recorded texts read by Rushdie intertwine with the perturbingly suspenseful music and movement which conveys the anguish of a fugitive. Raffinot was the winner of a highly coveted position, but he's got a challenging task ahead of him. After all, it's not everybody who gets a chance to perform with a whole orchestra of live musicians and composers on a daily basis in an unlimited one-of-a-kind creative process. Lack of subsidies to pay musicians has forced even the biggest dance companies to use CDs or silence since the '60s. Raffinot has always happily set himself apart from the increasingly mainstream contemporary dance world, avoiding the current dadaist approach to dance. He's had a double choreographic career, having worked for over 15 years in the formerly offbeat tradition of Baroque dance. After completing studies in philosophy, alongside his dance training, he co-founded the famous neo-Baroque company, Ris et Danceries, reconstructing long lost choreographies from the time of Louis XIV. In 1990, he founded his own company, Barocco, but gradually made a switch from the historic to the avant-garde, and was eventually appointed director of the National Choreographic Center in Le Havre in 1993. Although Raffinot claims that nothing remains of the Baroque in his creations, the musicality, clear construction and the rigorous expression of the dancers' armwork and upper body, which is neither overly narrative nor abstract, are pluses clearly stemming from his former work. This was seen in his recent choreography "Rift," a solid work exploring mankind's alleged origins in the African Rift, choreographed to music by György Ligeti and Philippe Hurel which he created at the Cité de la Musique with the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Like "Rift," "Play-Back" also promises to be a piece to make the audience come back for more. Twyla Tharp and co is back Not only are French dancemakers eager to return to the spontaneity and excitement of moving to live music, but so are the American post-moderns. Following in the increasingly neo-classical footsteps of veteran Trisha Brown, who presented a brilliantly choreographed version of Monteverdi's "Orféo" at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Twyla Tharp has also incorporated live music into her recent creations. As part of series of concerts titled "The Beethoven Experience" organized by the Cité de la Musique, Twyla Tharp and her company will present a new "ballet" set to the composer's "Diabelli Variations" June 5-8, performed by Russian solo pianist Nikolai Demidenko. Since Tharp founded her company in 1965, she's had a sweeping influence on American and world modern dance, perhaps the first to mix point shoes, bare feet and sneakers in the same work. She also gave Mikhail Barishnikov a chance to rival Michael Jackson and get down in her now legendary piece "Push Comes to Shove" (1976). She's been the toughest cookie in the New York dance mold, an outspoken anarchist who's gone from way-out performance art to humorous works set to swing, big-band and the Beach Boys. But now, like the rest of her vanguard generation, she seems to be getting nostalgically mellow, joining the end-of-century trend to take reassuring refuge in the classics. "Play-Back" (chor. François Raffinot, music Edmund J. Campion, performed by the Ensemble TM+), June 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 at 8:30pm, Agora '99 Festival, IRCAM-Centre Georges Pompidou, 1, pl Igor Stravinsky, 4e, METRO: Hôtel de Ville or Rambuteau, tel: 01.44.78.48.16. "Diabelli Variations" (chor. Twyla Tharp, music Ludwig van Beethoven, piano: Nikolai Demidenko), June 5 at 8pm; 6 at 6pm; 8 at 9pm., Cité de la Musique, 221, av Jean-Jaurès, 19e, METRO: Porte de Pantin, tel: 01.44.84.45.78. |
