Jérôme Bel

Isadora Duncan

Archive 2019
Dance
1/4

Concept, Jérôme Bel
Choreography, Isadora Duncan
With Elisabeth Schwartz
Assistant, Chiara Gallerani
Produced by R.B. Jérôme Bel
Coproduced by Tanz im August (Berlin) ; HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin) ; BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen) ; La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers ; Les Spectacles Vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris) ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
In association with Les Spectacles Vivants – Centre Pompidou (Paris) ; Festival d’Automne à Paris for performances at Centre Pompidou ; La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris for performances at La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
First performed on the16th August 2019 at Deutsches Theater (Berlin) as a part of Tanz im August.
Jérôme Bel is an associate artist at La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers.

In this new creation, the danced portrait of Isadora Duncan, Jérôme Bel pursues his explorations into the political dimension of dance. By confronting archives from the past with live performance in the present, it enables us to contemplate thought in the making.

With this piece devised for Elizabeth Schwartz, dancer and teacher, Jérôme Bel focusses on the work of Isadora Duncan, a figure on whom she is a specialist, thereby continuing the series of portraits of dancers that he embarked upon in 2004. Drawing upon her autobiographical account, Ma Vie, this is the first time we see Jérôme Bel dedicating himself to the portrait of a now deceased choreographer. Beneath her novelesque figure, Jérôme Bel builds up the portrait of a visionary choreographer whose immense freedom of expression, with its leaning towards spontaneity and naturalness, laid down the foundations of modern dance, and thus the origins of contemporary dance. Switching between registers, from the discursive to the sensitive, and from spoken moments to danced solos, the piece brings to life the memory of free dance by associating choreographic savoir faire with the experience of the show.
––––––
N.B.For ecological reasons, no air travel is made for the touring of this piece. A version is being created in New York, via Skype, with the dancer Catherine Gallant.


––––––
Estimated running time : 1h

In the same place

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
septembersept 20 – 28

Carte Blanche Dream City

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. 

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
septembersept 20 – 22

Selma & Sofiane Ouissi
BIRD

Carte Blanche Dream CityDance
Buy tickets

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.

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
septembersept 21 – 28

Visual arts: exhibitions and conversations

Carte Blanche Dream CityVisual arts
Free

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.

 

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
septembersept 21

Conference by Sophie Bessis
Tunisia in the turmoil of populism

Carte Blanche Dream CityConference
Free

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.

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
septembersept 27 – 28

Sammy Baloji
Missa Utica

Carte Blanche Dream CityMusic
Buy tickets

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.

Centre Pompidou
septembersept 27 – 29

Mathilde Monnier
Territoires

Dance
Buy tickets

In Territoires, Mathilde Monnier will be taking over the galleries of the Centre Pompidou during the course of a weekend in order to bring us a piece that deals with memory and circulation, "a collection of gestures from her work over the past thirty years". In doing so, the choreographer sets up the possibility of playing out memory in the present, from now onwards, or by means of anticipation.

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
septembersept 27 – 28

Winter Family
H2-Hébron

Carte Blanche Dream CityTheatre

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.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 2 - november – nov 2

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Complete retrospective of films and videos

Visual arts Focus
Buy tickets

Apichatpong Weerasethakul presents the complete retrospective of his films at the Centre Pompidou. It consists of his eight feature films, thirty or so short (and rare) films, various collective works, and two feature films produced by him.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 2 - january – jan 2

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Night Particles

Visual arts Focus
Buy tickets

The Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul is guest at the Festival d'Automne and Centre Pompidou. His exhibition, featuring around ten video installations, transforms the former solarium into a nocturnal space inhabited by biographical and architectural reminiscences.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 5 – 14

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
A Conversation with the Sun (VR), extended edition

Performance Focus

The Thai filmmaker's second foray into performance art, A Conversation with the Sun (VR), extended edition, presented in Paris in a new version enhanced by a third part, uses virtual reality to create the conditions for a collective dream.

Centre Pompidou
octoberoct 23 – 26
Points communs – Théâtre 95
novembernov 12 – 13

Ligia Lewis
Still Not Still

Dance
Buy tickets

In Still Not Still, choreographer Ligia Lewis pursues her exploration into the silences and shadows of history. In this piece, the performers play out a score over and over again, the burlesque dimension of which makes it all the more tragic.

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
novembernov 13 – 16

Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué
Biokhraphia

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

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.

La Commune, centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers
novembernov 13 – 16

Rabih Mroué
Riding on a cloud

Theatre Portrait
Buy tickets

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.

Centre Pompidou
novembernov 27 – 30

Forced Entertainment
Signal to Noise

Theatre
Buy tickets

Over its forty years of existence, with Tim Etchells at the helm, the company has never stopped reinventing itself. And it continues to do so. Amidst an oscillating form of virtual reality, six performers find themselves deprived of their voices and their entire beings. The whole thing goes beyond all understanding... Welcome to this new world.

Centre Pompidou
decemberdec 13 – 22
Théâtre des Quartiers d'Ivry
januaryjan 22 – 26

Sébastien Kheroufi
Par les villages

Theatre
Buy tickets

Sébastien Kheroufi discovered Peter Handke's Par les villages at the onset of his artistic career. It evokes a writer's return to his native village. Amidst the twilight setting in which one universe declines in favour of another, the voices of the “offended and humiliated” break their silence.