Montpellier Festival de danse
and Travel Journal

24 June to 8  July 2007

Author: Jochen Krölls

Christian Rizzo, B.c. Janvier 1545, Fontainebleau

Chai du Terral, 2007-06-25

The hare is waiting in front of the curtain until it reveals the white stage. Total silence. Lighted candles spread all over the floor. Black sculptures in various shapes made out of tissue and cushions hang down from above. Both the candles and the sculptures reduce the space available for dance movements. A woman in black clothes lies on a long table in front of the back wall.

She moves slowly, remains on the table for a while. Then, slowly, she leaves the table and I recognise her ultra-pointed ultra-high heels. A few slow and a few abrupt movements, many of them with a pointing finger. What does it point to? The stage light dims down slowly so that it no longer dominates the candle light. The hare (in fact an actor with a hare mask) walks to one of the candles, takes it away and positions it on the table.This puts a slight end to the silence as he wears kind of a wooden chain that produces a weak noise as he is moving.

While this procedure repeats itself seemingly endlessly in slightly varying constellations of candles and dancing positions, we notice upcoming sound environment: Mixtures and combinations of natural instrument loops and electronic noise that culminates in mega noise not ever seeming to want to end. Not much of a difference to techno music of the most intense kind. Although, there are a few instances when I can follow and appreciate the soundtrack during which the rest of the procedure on stage continues with little variation.

When finally all the candles are tidyly arranged on the table I find myself wishing the performance had reached its end, after two or three ten-second-instances of fading attention during which my spirit glides into other spheres outside the Chai du Terral... But I will have to patient myself for another 15 minutes or so, during which the hare walks to a board at the front left corner of the stage where we find a board from which he draws the threads of the sculptures to make them disappear in stage heaven. The magic ends with her blowing off the candles. Heaven.

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070627

Robin Orlin, We Must Eat our Suckers with our Wrappers on

Corum/Opéra Berlioz, 26 June 2007

Vibrant, sexually explicit dance theatre with African spirit, fresh, aggressive and at the same time friendly energy.

We get red suckers at the entrance to Montpellier’s largest theatre. We grab them out of red plastic bins. Four female and nine male African dancers/singers tell and sing the story of AIDS and its victims. They all carry the same type of red plastic bins which they use as drums and seats. And they all wear colourful skirts - unisex? Permanently followed by a man with a small camera the images of which we see on the screen at the rear stage wall. Excellent voices sing African acapella. They move from stage into the audience.

One lady, represented by a male dancer, tells us the story of her husband who has just died. The doctors forecast that she herself has only 3 weeks left to live. She tells us that from now on she will fully enjoy life, go out and watch beautiful sexy dancers at nightclubs. Simultaneously she gives suckers to several spectators in the first row, takes them back, sucks them herself very lusciously, puts them under her armpits and glues them to various other areas of her body.

Many songs to follow. Intelligent, simple and surprising camera and light effects - a single light bulb from the ceiling as the single light source, a red plastic bin moved up so the bulb disappears inside the bin like in a lantern and suddenly all there is is red light all over the stage..

In the last sequence they all wear costumes whith hidden heads. Inflated condoms fixed at the top of their heads with faces painted on them.

Frenetic applause. Deserved.

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070628

Mathilde Monnier, Tempo 76

Théâtre de Grammont, 27 June 2007

Silence. The stage is covered with real lawn. A black wall in the middle of the rear stage parallel to the rear wall. Consonance is the overall motto that nine dancers explore in numerous formations of Mathilde Monnier’s Tempo 76. Brilliant translation of various extracts of Györy Ligeti’s oeuvre into dance language. Amongst others, the famous metronome piece where Ligeti simultaneously sets off numerous metronomes which then get out of sync and produce interesting interferences. Anne-Theresa de Keersmaeker has also brilliantly put this into dance already. Monnier’s version is different, draws less on repetition and continuity, she involves all nine dancers and thus offers a different spectrum of experience. We can litterally observe the interferences visually in steps and pendulum movements.

Intelligently used space - formations of dancers in motion partially disappear behind the black stage wall and reappear in a different setting. Vivid sports instructions (at least this is how I perceived it) to (imaginary) children. First by a single dancer, then in unison (as consonance is the motto).  

Dance theatre at its best. Intense emotions uttered loud and impressively. Laughter, crying. All in unison. Breathtaking. Limit breaking; several times my limit between sadness and laughter is touched, perforated, and finally trespassed.

Rarely have I seen a performance that serves intellect, spirit and heart at the same time so intensely, sensitively and consequently. Rhythmic applause for minutes. Bravo.

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070630

Raimund Hoghe, MEINWÄRTS

Théatre de Grammont, 29 June 2007

Images and emotions developped in the slowness and patience that they require, no matter how long it may take. Objects of memory, pictures, candles spread over the stage and taken away again in numerous constellations. (Candle) light as a key to optical silence, sentiments, memory. During this, we hear recordings of operas and popular songs of Joseph Schmidt’s from the 1930s.

Nudity that does not stop when physical weakness becomes visible or even audible during quotations in the form of heavy breathing. Identification of the artist’s physical weakness with those of the honoured jewish tenor Joseph Schmidt who died in the attempt to flee from the Nazis. Physical weakness of millions of AIDS victims also. These seem to be the ones that occupy Hoghe and that he digests in MEINWÄRTS. A quiet and very personal work.

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070702

Trisha Brown, THREE WORKS

Corum/Opéra Berlioz, 30 June 2007

How long does the subject linger...

Clusters of dancers in red and blue form vivid moving sculptures. The movements of the individual dancers seem simple but the living sculpture is highly complex, filigrane and most beautiful. In front of the screen there is a transparent tissue on which a projector draws graphical sculptures that mirror the human sculptures, similarly complex and filigrane. The transcription is so excellent that, although straight lines, I feel I recognise the human sculptures of the dancers. Curtis Bahn’s sound creation, consisting of instrument samples and electronically manipulated sounds, has no such direct correlation with the dance figures but provides a minimalist sound environment instead that appears very appropriate to me. Considering how excellently the three arts go hand in hand still I have to say that the graphics, as beautiful as they are, steal more of my attention than I am willing to give because they distract me from the dance to a degree. I deliberately have to remind myself several times that I want to focus more on the dance because otherwise I will not perceive it at the degree it deserves.

Present tense - John Cage’s pieces for manipulated piano translated into something that reminds me of some Asian temple dance of the most beautifully bizarre kind.

I love my robots

Laurie Anderson’s music goes into my heart. At the same time, suppressing a burst out with laughter about the two broom-like robots with long sticks between the dancers I force myself again not to get distracted by the technical aspect. I feel reminded of animated cartoons of the 1970s where bewitched brooms play the key role. But seriously - Kenjiro Okazaki’s two remote controlled comrades form great counterpieces to the dancers. The last sequence really moves me. Trisha Brown herself goes into a vivid and playful physical dialog with the machines, full of fun and screams.

Another festival highlight.

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070706

Régine Chopinot, O.C.C.C

Théâtre de Grammont, 5 July2007

O.C.C.C deals with what happens when time disappears and all that consequently remains is the present. A spiritually not at all uncommon idea. Here are my impressions:

Apart from a very short introduction scenery all light comes from an almost dazzling light back stage wall, very evenly rear-illuminated by fluorescent tubes, with a very cold tint. A number of objects on stage - trolley suitcases, wooden bricks, spears. All back, same as the stage itself. Consequently we perceive any action like in a shadow theatre. Chopinot cultivates this in the way the dancers position themselves and also, interestingly, in their hand signs - mudras?

Strict black and white as a reduction of colours and shades and almost two-dimenssionality as an equivalent to the loss of past and future? Cold, black and white also the sound (and most of the time noise) environment. Nothing really new from that part (not saying that I expect spectacular innovation here) - noise samples at various playback speeds to produce strange sounds, at times some common rhythm patterns, plus some synthesizer tunes, put into a big pot, stirred and sent to the loudspeakers. Some of the arrangements do touch me however.

Very intelligent use of the objects. Used as masks, matraces, gliding shoes, thrown and caught. Unique dancing figures. Surprisingly arranged clusters of dancers, acrobatic and sensitive at the same time. The present makes itself aware (and the absence of past and future) in the continuity. As there are no past and no future we do not have to think about what will be next. It just happens. O.C.C.C. just happens. And that can be the overall message to us. Let it happen.

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070708

Francesca Lattuada, ALLEGRO MACABRO

Opéra Comédie, 6 July2007

I cannot say much about Allegro Macabro. Beautiful costumes, one of which had small light bulbs like sparkling stars when there was little stage light, by Jean-Michel Angays. Endlessly looping (25 times?) extract from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and dance acrobatics diagonally across stage, beautiful and boring. Public warming-up as a preparation for Teshigawara?

Saburo Teshigawara, VACANT

In DIU VALLENDE SUHT Henrietta Horn worked on the medieval phenomenon of falling sickness in an impressive way. Interestingly, the festival programme booklet mentions Susanne Linke as an example of styles that are not Teshigawara’s provenance, together with Bhuto - Linke was the head of Folkwang Tanzstudio a while before Henrietta Horn.

And still - Teshigawara’s movements to György Ligeti’s concerto similarly seem to deal with disorders - psychotic or schizoide - the piece does remind me of Diu vallende Suht. Teshigawara seems to interpret Ligeti’s contemporary music throughout as expression of sickness, strangeness, or pain. That disturbs me on the one hand but I have to admit that I know too little about the intentions of the composer which could very well be exactly this.

First the whole group of dancers perform distorted shaking bizarre postures and movements. Later, some freeze and stand still while others continue. Light and sound develop further, the movements become something more dance-like and go back to the distorted style..

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070708

Dominique Bagouet
JOURS ETRANGES and SO SCHNELL

Corum/Opéra Berlioz, 7 July 2007

Fifteen years after their creation the Grand Théatre de Genève have put into their programme two pieces by Dominique Bagouet.

JOURS ETRANGES to me is a wonderful 1970s-revival. Extracts of The Doors’ Strange Days, various disco dance styles from the early 1970s, lights in all rainbow colours. Social Interaction between the performers. Genuine and without exageration. (Although I know the early 1970s only as a child I know what I am saying.) A good amount of humour makes it a warm and in the best sense entertaining piece.

SO SCHNELL. really moves me a great deal. BWV26, Bach’s Cantate converted into dance in all its polyphony and emotion. The only other dance interpretation of Bach that I know and that has had similar quality was by Hans van Manen (I guess created in the 1970s, seen in Amsterdam in 2000). In Montpelier I felt I could litterally see the musical motives, sounds, and strucures. Various simultaneous dance patterns in groups, lines, diagonal, circling, each in its way representing lines of the music in a very genuine way and consisting of simple movements. Overwhelming. The complexity comes from the combination and still makes an overall spirit visible.

And there is more than Bach music. There are segments without music and such where we listen to noises of textile manufacturing machines. Bagouets family business was (is?) in the textile industry - not only in this respect a very personal work. In the machine noises there are polyphonies and parallel strings too. And I feel I detect manufacturing stages and procedures in the particular movements of the dancers, intelligently and emotionally combined. Spectacular.

Author: Jochen Krölls 20070708

... and finally

once more Montpellier and the festival were a wonderful experience to me. Contemporary dance, like almost any serious contemporary art, is a point of discussion, exchange, and last but not least creativity. This means we often disagree. We do not know what to expect because it is new. Rather than consuming what we all know, e.g. classical dance, we enter into something that can make us reflect and perceive and realise emotions and sides in or of ourselves that were less exploited before. Sometimes we are moved strongly - I believe more than classical art can achieve. This is what makes it worth attending performances that are not smooth or harmonic or beautiful but confrontative. From my words above you can derive what I liked much, and what less. Moreover, I believe it is important that we progress further and enter into an active perception and participation of contemporary art and its contribution to self and social reflection.

The choreographic centre of Montpellier have sold about thirty-six thousand tickets for this year’s festival - congratulations. The city of Montpellier has provided a framework that makes this reflection possible, or easy. A charming old city centre, beautiful spots between old houses and trees, a number of overwhelming historical spots (also see FOTO section on artkroells). An open population. Le charme du Midi. Thank you for hosting the festival, the artists and the visitors.