Lucinda Childs
Early Works
Opening – CND Centre national de la danse
Radial Courses (1976)
Dance 2 (1979)
Choreography, Lucinda Childs
Radial Courses performers, Lucinda Childs Dance Company dancers
Dance 2 performers, Anne Lewis and Caitlin Scranton
Costume design, Carlos Soto
A CND Centre national de la danse production // In collaboration with Pomegranate Arts / Linda Brumbach
Programme A – CND Centre national de la danse
Pastime (1963)
Choreography, Lucinda Childs
Performer, Mathilde Monnier
Reinterpretation, Ruth Childs
Lighting design, Eric Wurtz
Music, Philip Corner
Carnation (1964)
Choreography, Lucinda Childs
Performer, Ruth Childs
Lighting design, Eric Wurtz
Museum Piece (1965)
Choreography, Lucinda Childs
Performer, Ruth Childs
Lighting design, Eric Wurtz
Description (of a description) (2000)
Choreography, Lucinda Childs
Text, Susan Sontag
Music, stage and lighting design, Hans Peter Kühn
Lighting re-creation, Eric Wurtz
Set construction, Media Pool and MC93
Re-creation : Associate producer, CND Centre national de la danse // An MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny) coproduction; Festival d’Automne à Paris ; La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers // In association with CND Centre national de la danse ; La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers ; MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny) ; Festival d’Automne à Paris
Programme B – La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
Katema (1978)
Reclining Rondo (1975)
Interior Drama (1977)
Concerto (1993)
Choreography, Lucinda Childs
Performers, Lucinda Childs Dance Company (Katie Dorn, Kate Fisher, Sarah Hillmon, Anne Lewis, Vincent McCloskey, Sharon Milanese, Benny Olk, Patrick John O’Neill, Matt Pardo, Lonnie Poupard Jr., Caitlin Scranton, Shakirah Stewart) Costume design, Carlos Soto, Anne Masset
Music for Concerto, Henryk Górecki, Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings performed by Elisabeth Chojnacka
Reconstitution : A Lucinda Childs Dance Company production, in collaboration with Pomegranate Arts (Linda Brumbach) // In residence at CND Centre national de la danse // Coproduction and in association with CND Centre national de la danse ; MC93 – Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis (Bobigny) ; Festival d’Automne à Paris ; La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
In partnership with France Inter
Dance, this art of incarnation of a unique kind, never ceases to establish and re-establish the pre-requisites for its transmission. How, in today’s world, can we access works produced over fifty years ago? How can we breathe new life into their movements, and show them in different bodies? For this exceptional schedule of performances devoted to the work of Lucinda Childs, the CND Centre National de la Danse, La Commune Centre Dramatique National d’Aubervilliers, the MC93 and the Festival d’Automne à Paris have come together to present a wide cross-section of her work, dating from early works created at the Judson Church in the 1960’s, to Description (of a description) created in the year 2000 - a solo which Lucinda Childs still performs today.
The opening up of the CND, to the outdoors, and the banks of the Ourcq canal, will also enable audiences to rediscover the Radial Courses quartet (1976), whose circular structure and elementary syntax, comprised of walking, running, hops, skips and jumps, lays the foundations for the minimalist style. Echoing this, two solos taken from Dance (1979), brought together in the form of a duo, will allow us to contemplate the continuity of this choreographic language on its return journey to the sources of movement.
At the CND, the reconstitution work lead by Lucinda Childs and her niece Ruth Childs will be plunging us headlong into a compelling flashback. On the frontiers of dance and performance, these works bring out all the radicalism of the post-modern movement - situated somewhere between the refusal of the spectacular and the widening of dance’s field of action or scope, via the incorporation of commonplace gestures. The first, Pastime - an intriguing choreographic sculpture in which the body, wrapped up in a piece of fabric, explores the interplay between surface and volume afforded by this enveloping effect - will be the subject of a one-off revival performed by Mathilde Monnier, director of the CND Centre National de la Danse. Carnation is an emblematic work of post-modern dance which, due to the simplicity of its effects and visual arts-related impact, has paved the way for a whole host of contemporary dancers and performers. In this ready-made choreographic offering, Lucinda Childs embarks on a methodical deconstruction of her own image with the aid of objects taken from everyday life, ranging from sponges to hair-rollers. Lastly, Museum Piece, brings into existence the fantastical scenario of being situated inside a painting in order to describe and spatialize it, as well as to experiment with all the perception-based divergencies at play between discourse, painting and dance. Thirty years later, she returns to this critical use of language in the solo Description (of a description), devised in response to a song by Susan Sontag.
For the third part in this journey, La Commune Centre Dramatique National d’Aubervilliers will be presenting Katema, Reclining Rando and Interior Drama, three pieces from the 1970’s which together form a true laboratory of minimalism, and in which the repetition of the same rhythms in accordance with different geometric formations produces a compulsive combination of gestures and rhythms. This programme will also provide the opportunity to rediscover her Concerto, from 1993, set to Henryk Górecki’s harpsichord concerto, which in turn marks the debut of the choreographer’s explorations into contemporary music, accompanied by the harpsichordist Elisabeth Chojnacka.
In the same place
Carte Blanche Dream City
The multi-disciplinary Tunisian festival Dream City is moving to Aubervilliers at the joint invitation of the Festival d'Automne and La Commune, with the shared desire to make this area rustle, resonate and dream through a dozen creations by international performing and visual artists.
Selma & Sofiane Ouissi BIRD
Starting with ordinary everyday gestures such as feeding, living together and getting around, Sofiane Ouissi explores our relationship with birds. Passionate about encounters and the journeys they generate, this time he delves into the relationship with another species.
Visual arts: exhibitions and conversations
Artists Jumana Manna and Sille Storihle, Manthia Diawara, Michael Rakowitz & Robert Chase Heishmans will be in La Commune from 20 to 28 September to present five works and invite you to take part in two conversations.
The works of Nil Yalter will be on display in the public space of Aubervilliers.
Conference by Sophie Bessis Tunisia in the turmoil of populism
After a decade of chaotic but richly experienced democratic apprenticeship, Tunisia found itself plunged into a new cycle of its post-colonial history from 2021 onwards. From that date onwards, Kaïs Saïed, who was democratically elected in 2019, assumed all the powers, transforming a fledgling democracy into an autocracy.
Sammy Baloji Missa Utica
The first black bishop appointed by the Catholic Church should have settled in Utica, Tunisia, but never did. His story is the starting point for Sammy Baloji's work.
Winter Family H2-Hébron
Winter Family is an experimental music and documentary theatre duo founded by Israeli artist Ruth Rosenthal and French musician Xavier Klaine. They play minimal, obsessive, abrasive and political music. They created H2 Hebron, their 3rd show in 2018, a documentary piece in which the transcription of nearly 500 pages of testimonies, their translation, selection and reappropriation by Winter Family are the central element and the main dramaturgical material of the show.
Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué Biokhraphia
These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia et Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.
Rabih Mroué Riding on a cloud
These two one-person shows, Biokhraphia and Riding on a cloud, are an investigation into the self-portrait. In Riding on a Cloud, a man called Yasser speaks into a dictaphone, projects videos and broadcasts recordings, whilst expressing reservations about the extent to which these documents coincide with his true self. In Biokhraphia, it is Lina Majdalanie who becomes the subject of a very unusual interview.
Radouan Mriziga Atlas/The Mountain
In Atlas/The Mountain, the Moroccan choreographer Radouan Mriziga transforms his body into a catalyst for energies and traditions from the Atlas Mountains. This solo in the form of a ritual is transcended by polymorphic figures and captivating rhythms.
Latifa Laâbissi, Antonia Baehr Cavaliers impurs In a visual installation by Nadia Lauro
Following on from Consul and Meshie, Latifa Laâbissi and Antonia Baehr bring us a duo in the form of a series of heterogeneous sequences, interlinked by a common thread of the impure, hybridization and collage. They combine their respective vocabularies, such as the relationship with the expressiveness of the face, and the crossing of genres, registers. Over the course of different numbers or acts, Laâbissi and Baehr interweave their respective universes, thereby overturning the various choreographic codes and blurring the frontiers.
Elsa Dorlin Travailler la violence #4
How can we work on violence? How can we put into perspective, stage and retell it? How can we tear it to pieces? The purpose of this two day-long series of encounters, put together by the philosopher Elsa Dorlin, will be to update what critiques of violence teach us and to make an inventory of the various weapons of violence collected.