“The times in which I live, my memory of history, the people, the images, the sensations, the power and the beauty of music as well as confrontation with the body – which in my case does not correspond to conventional norms of beauty – are at the heart of my artistic interrogations.” A journalist turned dramatic adviser to work alongside Pina Bausch from 1980 to 1990, Raimund Hoghe “throws his body into the fight” to use Pier Paolo Pasolini's expression. He launched into his own stage work through a series of solos: Meinwärts (1994), Chambre séparée (Separate Room) (1997) and Another Dream (2000).
As a counterpoint, he created plays for groups, where other artists are invited into his world. In this trajectory, the delicate gestures and writing belie the radicalism of a political intention where the body is put to the test of history, both with a lowercase and a capital “H”, be it social or artistic by mixing portraits of celebrities and of the man in the street, as well as music and dance such as in Young People, Old Voices (2002), Sacre - The Rite of Spring (2004) or Swan Lake, 4 Acts (2005).
Raimund Hoghe staged Verdi Prati at the 1993 Avignon Festival.
36, Avenue Georges Mandel could be the title of a Modiano novel or a song by Barbara, but when Raimund Hoghe picked it, he had a particular idea in mind. Aficionados will no doubt have understood immediately. The address, in all meanings of the word, takes us back to the now mythical opera personality, Maria Callas, and her last home address in Paris. In the empty, bare space of the Chapelle des Pénitents blancs, the German artist moves like a sleepwalker following what the sound of this most original and powerful voice, which profoundly marked the second half of the 20th century, dictates to him.
The dramatist and performer's writing coupled with his ritualised use of gestures, sketch a new dialogue with the shadow of the Diva. It follows the echo of a life spent on the steep slopes of beauty bathed in the melancholy transparency of art with its dazzling highs and lows. By depicting a singular distress, roaming and migrating its way through the materials and the choreographer's scenic images, the face of another community – that of the homeless – shines out.
The world of bodies that interests Raimund Hoghe shows a predilection for music. He likes to reveal meaning through listening and posture in minimally designed choreographies. Using gestures in displacement or simple manipulations of objects – here, a few clothes and images – his interpretation and his direction sharpen the eye, slinging the spectator into the strata of time. Memory – of places, people and history – revisited through the inimacy of a solo, turns this creation into a tribute as much as a shared experience that changes again with the apparition of Emmanuel Eggermont, who moves like “a dream, a memory of youth, a guardian angel or a passer-by who opens a new door”.
Distribution
conception, chorégraphie et danse :Raimund Hoghe
collaboration artistique :Luca Giacomo Schulte
danseur invité :Emmanuel Eggermont
lumière :Raimund Hoghe, Amaury Seval
son: Patrick Buret
musique: Maria Callas chante des airs de Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Spontini, Giordano, Gluck, Massenet, Catalani, Saint-Saëns et Bizet enregistrés entre 1949 et 1974
administration: Arnaud Antolinos
Production
production :Compagnie Raimund Hoghe (Düsseldorf/Paris)
en coproduction avec :Ganesa Production - Spring Wave / Festival des Arts contemporains de Séoul (Corée), le Festival d'Avignon, le Centre national de danse contemporaine d'Angers, le Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster
avec le soutien :du Théâtre de la Bastille (Paris)
accueilli avec :le partenariat du ministère des Affaires étrangères d'Allemagne et du Goethe-Institut
Ce spectacle est accueilli au Festival d'Avignon :sous le haut patronage de M. Klaus Wowereit, maire régnant de Berlin et Plénipotentiaire de la République fédérale d'Allemagne pour la Coopération culturelle avec la France