Régine Chopinot / Cornucopiae & Le Wetr
In a career spanning 30 years, Régine Chopinot has lived through the emergence and development of contemporary dance. From her base in France, she actively participated in the writing of these first chapters of the still brief history of a new art. Directing, from 1986 to 2008, one of the major national choreographic centres of France, the CCN in La Rochelle, she opened it to artists from around the world and steadfastly refused to push her creative energies down too well-trodden paths. Since 2008, a new structure, Cornucopiae – the Independent Dance, has provided a home for all the work, creations as well as repertory, of Régine Chopinot, who chose the Toulon port in 2011 to live and work in. Since 2009, the choreographer has been venturing into, questioning and deepening her research on the body in motion directly linked to the strength of words with cultures organized by and on oral transmission, in New Caledonia, New Zealand and Japan. In 2012, the privileged relationship she has had with Le Wetr of Drehu/Lifou since 2009 has given birth to the premiere of Very Wetr! at the Festival d'Avignon, where she already presented Délices in 1983 and Via in 1984.
Since 1992, Le Wetr (pronounced “Wetch”) has been bringing together men and women of all ages from the Wetr district on Lifou island in New Caledonia. Twenty years ago, their intention was to rediscover and make the dances, songs and music, lost since the French colonization, once more their own. Based on custom, the founding act of Kanak culture and society, everything is transmitted orally from generation to generation. Today, the “ancients” cherish the idea of passing on to young people a tradition that is open and not rigidly fixed. Their art is vast, sophisticated and powerful. Regularly invited to tour with new works in the Pacific, Asia, the United States and Europe, Le Wetr is actively participating in a renewal of the imaginative life of the South Pacific, consciously avoiding cliché.
RB, April, 2012