EXPLORATIONS / VIDEOS

DUO BOUHANA / MARCELLE

Explorations with percussionist Sébastien Bouhana. Training for 3 performances we gave in Drôme in 2023. 



JAZZ MEETS CONTEMPORARY

An improvised solo recorded in my "personnal studio", a wooden platform among the olive trees. My score was to be present to myself and to this music I was listening to for the first time, while combinating two cultures: Modern Jazz and a wide spread contemporary dance technique, Release Technique. Music: H Hunt.



INTENTION / SUSPENSION / ATTENTION

In this short impro vid, I am considering 2 speeds : the speed of Intention/ the speed of Operation. All along both operations there is Attention.

At some point, this little rule helped me to taste some suspensions of the movement and the mind. At some points you see my hands grapping imaginary bars in the air. This is also suspension. Maybe, at the crossroad of Intention, Execution and Attention, there is the emergence of Imagination.

Imagination is never the starting point of my improvisations. It is the resulting insight.


OUR DANCE - MOTHER & DAUGHTER

Assisting your expansion, I open up for you a secure place, a nest called Dance

Mum,  please, transfer your weight through my bones

Use my structure for flowering to the world

I am a child of you

We are the children of gravity

Let's compost our pasts here

Let's surrender to the the Earth.


P17 MYSTERY

Recorded at the Chapel of the White Penitents in Mollans-sur-Ouvèze, France (2021), this video shows my first encounter with P17 fabric, an agricultural covering for forcing the maturation of the plants. In French, the fabric is called Voile de Forçage, enforcement cover. It is used in order to get fruits earlier. It is used in a context of liberalism productivism based on competition. To be the first on the market, before anyone else, one has to use forcing devices.

The fabric is frequently found in nature. Blown by the wind, torn. Its abandon in nature severely pollutes the soils and rivers in countryside. Found left and lost, the figure of the P17 shows a very sad face of abandonment. This state is the starting point of the video. The fabric is found. The difference is that it is found in a sacred place: an old Chapell of the White Penitent in the heart of a village of south-east France.

As a female body, this display opened up a field of exploration intermingling different meaningfull layers, letting some figures, new and old, appearing and disapearing at the pace of my progressive understanding of what was happening. The main motor of my action is "how does it feel?" and not "what can I do now?".

The music, El mysteri d'Elx is the only authorised opus of theatre that the Church allows to be played in churches. The song "Deu vos salve Verge imperial II" is played 8 times, like a mantra. Reconsidering the relationship with time and the process.

Both the Chappel, the P17 fabric and the song from the Mysteri d'Elx offer a very interesting combination of readings. Taken with no consideration of the dancer, they operate as genuine free actors.

My work tends to blur the difference between subject and object. I operate from my neurodiverse body-mind and not a will of giving the public a clear defined and controlled peace of art. I let the public witnessing my rationality that is entirely based on uncategorized physical sensations and symbols.





NOTHING TO HOLD FROM THE PAST //2020

Dance improvisation during the first covid19 lockdown. France, March 2020

At that time, I was experiencing a spiritual connection with the women of my family, past and present.
Authentic movement was my way to elaborate a communication of compassion by letting any movement emerge from the depths of my body's cells.
This impro was run with no preselection of the music. So, it was a real experience into theNot-Knowing, unfolding unknown truths. No intention for compostion or showing anything off... This was just what was there... and what I was ignoring about my movement langage untill this dance came up.





Just One more journey in Not-Knowing // 2019

A soft and slow exploration of connectedness with dancer Andy Kilian in Berlin, Summer 2019.

Additionnal music to the video : Meredith Monk, "Ellis Island", from "Piano Songs" album.
We don't own rights to the music.



CONTACT KIDS // 2019

As a contact dancer, I am exploring differences of height and weight. The really playfull experiences with Myla in my retreat place in Provence taught me a lot about the way we connect and communicate. Kids may sometimes wait for the adult to be given a direction or, on the contrary, jump spontaneously on their back and take them by surprise. I like also the fact that adults are also invited, in this kind of dance, to roll on the ground and to be not higher than their partner. They can re-explore some fundamental movements with a little help from their little partners. Also, it feels great to give kids the basics of CI so that they ca also support their taller partner cwith confidence and strenght. Looking forward for opening safe and uplifting spaces for Kids and Parents in France and Belgium!

TRIO // 2017

A playfull exploration with Raoul Germano and Charles le Maire, opening up spaces and experiencing power relationships.



An Unscored Meeting // 2017

An improvised duet with dancer performer Raoul Germano.
Recorded at Studio Hybrid, June 2017.  Additionnal music : Carl Philipp Emmanuel BACH, "Rondo 1 in A Major, Wq.58, interpreted by Mikhail PLETNEV, Deutsche Grammophon Classics, 2001.



She wishes he was here, there, inside and out // 2016

Shot and edited in Jannuary 2016, this little video shows some explorations of what became, few months later, the material of my dance film JUBILEE.
"She wishes he was here, there, inside and out" shows the seminal movements of the female solo.
This exploration is all about desire, pregnancy and loneliness.
Added music : MURCOF, "Recuerdos", album "Remembraza", 2005.




A  ray of Light // 2015

A small improvised solo during Christmas night 2015. Exploring the effects of infra-red camera combined with a single tiny source of light.



ZIEGLER LETTERS // 2015

Instead of words, some movements. A Ziegler letter is a very short message to a far away friend. It's personnal. This is a communication. The principles of a Ziegler letter is : imrpovisation (during 8 minutes maximum), working on the edition no longer than one hour... and then sending the letter to the recipient.



Jubilee Park - Brussels // 2015


Between museums of Art and museum of War, we dance, we get lost, we find ourselves back. Automn 2015 was a fantastic period of exploration of this beautiful park in Brussels. All these works led to the creation of Jubilee dance film.

Thanks to Pierre-Jean Develter, Julien Marcelle and Laurent Ziegler for opening up and supporting  this intense time of creativity.

[Video to be inserted soon...]