The Lied and ballet: two highly codified artistic forms, that Thomas Lebrun decided to bring face to face. Using the texts of German Lieder as libretto, from Franz Schubert to Alban Berg, borrowing from ballet its three-act structure and playing with set pieces, the choreographer mixes approaches and desires. It all begins with the transformation of the romantic themes of the Lieder into something to dance to, creating a choreographic writing that starts with pantomime and ends in abstraction. In the end, everything combines into a great chorus defying genres and categories that fundamentally expresses the artist's trust in the dancing body. Thomas Lebrun's show showcases a form of free dance, a dance that accepts all its influences and opens up a wealth of choreographic possibilities. A dance that doesn't accept facile dichotomies—classic/modern, high-brow/popular, abstraction/narration—but tries to find its own place between the lines, on top of them, or by weaving them together. On the stage are eight dancers for whom the pleasure of movement is not an obstacle to contemporary choreographic writing, joined for the second act by a pianist and a tenor. Together, they make theirs a choreographic or musical legacy and assert themselves, like Thomas Lebrun does himself, “not so much as creators but as makers, actors, reactors, transmitters of a story that we cannot control, that carries us and feeds us.”
Renan Benyamina, April 2014
Distribution
Choregraphy Thomas Lebrun
Musical creation David François Moreau
Music Lieder by Alban Berg, Gustav Mahler, Giacinto Scelsi, Arnold Schönberg
Lighting Jean-Marc Serre
Sound Mélodie Souquet
Costumes Jeanne Guellaff
Costumes realisation Jeanne Guellaff, Sylvie Ryser
With Benjamin Alunni (tenor), Thomas Besnard (piano), Maxime Camo, Anthony Cazaux, Raphaël Cottin, Anne-Emmanuelle Deroo, Tatiana Julien, Anne-Sophie Lancelin, Matthieu Patarozzi, Léa Scher
Production
Production Centre chorégraphique national de Tours
Coproduction Festival d'Avignon, Maison de la Danse de Lyon, Les Quinconces-L'Espal Scène conventionnée du Mans, Maison de la Culture de Bourges Scène nationale, Les Deux Scène-Scène nationale de Besançon, La Rampe-La Ponatière Scène conventionnée (Échirolles), Association Beaumarchais SACD
With the support of Région Centre and SPEDIDAM