Sprint - Le Phare

Sprint
Avant-premiere on May 24th 2013 at Triangle (Rennes, FR) / Festival Agitato
Premiere on May 27th, 28th and 29th 2013 at
Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis
Centre National de la Danse (Pantin, FR)
11 & 12 January 2014 – CPR / Chez Buswick (New-York) with th support od ODIA Normandie
24 & 25 January 2014 – Festival Pharenheit (Le Havre)
18 november 2014 – National Choreographic Center of Tours
Direction and Choreography Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh
Performance Maeva Cunci
Set and lights Françoise Michel
Sound David Monceau
Costumes Corine Petitpierre
Costumes Production Anne Tesson
Photo Credit Laurent Philippe
Production
Le Phare, Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie.
Coproduction
Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis, Centre National de la Danse (Pantin).
Le Phare, Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie is supported by the Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles de Haute-Normandie, the Ministère
de la Culture et de la Communication and also by the Région Haute-Normandie and the city of Le Havre.
Maeva Cunci is a performer who has been working with me since 2002. For that reason she has crossed the path of several cycles of my
choreography.
Here, in this solo, the race doesn’t symbolize mobility or a headlong rush, it is more of a developing tank.
Maeva hates running, and it is with full knowledge of the facts that I am proposing to her this “sprint” as I starting point… I want to
provoke what will come to circumvent and/or distort this run, like a Basso continuo, an almost neutral figure from which other states of the
body will spring, multiple and protean presences marked by the successive exhaustions induced by this sprint.
Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh
Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh’s Sprint belongs to the fundamental category of modern choreography that consists in elaborating on a single
movement and exhausting all its possibilities. As the title indicates, the theme developed in this 50-minute piece is running, performed all
around the stage by Maeva Cunci.
Let’s focus for a moment on the stage persona of this performer who has worked closely with the choreographer. Maeva Cunci’s presence
is compact and fully developed, yet restrained. She is an artist who thinks about and composes her presence without gushing. She is also
known for highly varied stylistic endeavors such as post-performance musical theater (with the group Vraoums).
In Sprint, Maeva Cunci’s neutrality provides ample space for kinesthetic empathy, inspired by her physical experience in this extreme
context. She runs and runs, nothing more, almost nothing. A tremendous amount of running. Long uniform sequences are suspended in
the air. Her trajectory branches off. Energy levels change. A break is necessary. The breathing alone could provide the beat for the entire
performance.
The test of endurance instills its hypnotic force, has you waiting again, develops anew, unwinds, drifts, and then takes off once more,
going for the long term. Did I say test of endurance? Indeed Sprint puts you to the test – through physical feelings – a thousand and one
thoughtful questions about what makes dance, interpretation, presence, rhythm and modulation, space and plasticity, resistance and
duration, energy expenditure, and so on.
And so on. This book of fundamentals is to be read in a sweat, through one’s emotional intelligence, all questions being asked again,
doubts still permitted and curiosity renewed. Sprint is a piece about questions, always open-ended, delivering no rules unilaterally while
compelling recognition through a radical principle. A very pleasing and intransigent modesty.
There is a gesture here, in the strongest sense of the word: a gesture we were waiting for, to mark its creator’s appointment as head of a
national choreography center, where she can assert a style that has already produced fine results, subsequently threatened with
disaffection. In Sprint she has come rushing back to that vital intensity.
Gérard Mayen
Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh
Choreographer and director of Le Phare, Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie
Ballet trained at the Conservatory in Tours, Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, joined the Merce Cunningham School in New York in 1987. Upon her
return to France she danced for François Raffinot from 1991 until 1996.
In 1997, she found the Sui Generis Company in Le Havre, which has been in residency in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany at La Passerelle – Scène
Nationale and in Rennes, Brittany at Le Triangle – Plateau pour la danse.
Alcoba (1998) evokes love relationships, Anthume ou la sensation du membre fantôme (1998) is about the theme of absence. Attracted
by neurologist Antonio R. Damasio’s research she creates Texture/solo on the lack of emotions, followed by Texture/Composite (1999)
thanks to a Villa Medicis Hors-les murs grant. In 2001, Sagen comes from her work on schizophrenia inspired by writings by Jean Noury.
From 2003, several performances belong to a more minimalist cycle about repetition and variation : Décompositions (2003), CROISéES
(2004), White Light (2005) are shaping the themes of time, memory and recollection. Finally, ici/Per.For (2006), a solo piece, in
collaboration with composer Zeena Parkins, closes this cycle.
After that Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, renewed her relationship with the figure through painting and music with Eaux-fortes (2007). The same
year she creates Aboli Bibelot... Rebondi, a playful solo for one female performer and a trampoline on the music Visible/Invisible by Zeena
Parkins, composer with whom she signs, the following year, 5'24 (2008). In 2009, Ad astra female quartet on the image of the femme
fatale in end-of-19th century culture and the re-creation of Fractale (part 2 of the diptych Décompositions) shows the diversity in the
artist’s choreographic desires.
Very fond of scientific researches, Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh considers a diptych -transire- (2010) and -insight- (2013), based on the works
by anthropologist Françoise Héritier on the motif of otherness and male/female.
Invited in 2011 by the Toronto Dance Theatre, she creates Vortex based on the music piece Vortex Temporum by Gérard Grisey. In 2012,
she takes up the material with her own company and creates revolve a female septet with a live orchestra.
2013 is the year of –insight- and also Sprint for and with Maeva Cunci, female dancer.
Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh also, on occasions, accepts invitations or specific projects such as Rainbow (2008) commissioned by Le Triangle or
Histoires Exquises, in which she has been inviting choreographers to write a solo since 2011. In 2012, within Concordan(s)e, she cosigned with writer Jérôme Mauche La poterie punaise.
Since 2012, Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh is director of Le Phare, Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre – Haute-Normandie which artistic
project is open to the diversity of choreographic writings.
Françoise Michel
After studying Geology, Françoise Michel trained in sound and light engineering at the Ecole du Théâtre National in Strasbourg, directed at
the time by Jean-Pierre Vincent. In 1980, she is introduced to Odile Duboc and contemporary dance, starting a long collaboration on the
creation and production of dance performances. During this period she created stage lighting for Josette Baïz, Hideyuki Yano, Francine
Lancelot, Mark Tompkins, Georges Appaix, François Raffinot, the Dunes group, Daniel Larrieu… Not abandoning the theatre however, she
also worked with Valère Novarina, François Chattot, Hélène Vincent, Lambert Wilson, Yoshi Oïda…Working with Odile Duboc as lighting
director she also created the stage design for several pieces (Thaïs, Le Pupille veut être tuteur…). Today she works regularly on
creations by Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, Mié Coquempot. For Françoise Michel, the creation of the lighting is a kind of writing: “The lighting is
not just a finishing touch, it is part of the creative process alongside the choreography”.
Françoise Michel accompanies all of Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh’s creations as lighting engineer and scenographer.
Maeva Cunci
After training with Mathilde Monnier on the ex.e.r.ce program (2000) she worked as a dancer with Virginie Mirbeau (2000-2001), Thierry
Baë (2001), Julie Desprairies (2003-2005), Boris Charmatz for the Bocal project (2003-2004), Maud Le Pladec and Mickaël Phelippeau
(2005), David Wampach (2005-2009), but also as costume designer with Elodie Bergerault (2008), Rosalind Crisp (2008) or as
assistant to Mickaël Phelippeau (2008-2009).
At the same time, she developed her own work, particularly with the Clubdes5, a collective of performers, and then on her own: including
collective performances, sound design and choreography, creation of costumes, videos and texts… all her projects are linked by the idea
of allowing different layers of action to interfere with each other: landscapes, colours, voices, textile animals and silhouettes….
Maeva is also one of the 4 members of the Vraoums, part-time musicians dressed up as icons from another era, who perform burlesque
punk and folk concerts.
With Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, she participated in the creation of décompositions, White Light, Fractale, Ad astra and the re-creation of
Croisées.
She also created the costumes for Aboli Bibelot... Rebondi, Eaux-Fortes, 5’24, Rainbow and La poterie punaise.
David Monceau
David composes music for the performing arts (dance, theatre) for Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh (White Light, Rainbow, Ad astra, –transire -),
Karine Ponties (Havran, Humus Vertebra and Babil), Yves Noël Genod (several different performances…), KF Association (Qui exprime
ma pensée), Ayelen Parolin (Troupeau), Le Théâtre des Opérations (Förter und Gräfin), etc...
He has also been a performer and choreographer in several contemporary dance companies since 1997 (Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, Herman
Diephuis, Julie Des Prairies, Jean Marc Heim, Pierre Cotreau and Geisha Fontaine, Christine Le Berre, Patrick Le Doaré, Laura Scozzi,
etc...).Additionally he is songwriter and composer for ‘Olyphant’
(http://www.myspace.com/davidmonceau http://www.myspace.com/davidmonceauolyphant)
Corine Petitpierre
A graduate of the Ecole Supérieure des Arts et Techniques, Corine Petitpierre designs and creates costumes and works on stage design
for directors and choreographers including: Odile Duboc, Xavier Leroy, Claude Buchwald. Her approach to costume design is an artistic
one and is always in close collaboration with others, especially with
Sophie Perez, Olivia Grandville, Vincent Dupont and Alban Richard.
In 1997, she founded Hop là ! nous vivons with Yvan Clédat, for the creation of different types of projects : shows, installations,
performances, sculpture, video…
With Emmanuelle Vo-Dinh, Corine created the costumes for Ad astra, –transire-, revolve and –insight-.