Trilogy's video is now on vimeo! With Daniela Lucato, Nicola Campanelli, Roberta Ricci, Giulia Fani, David Travers, Sara Fortuna, Connecting Fingers Company
With the kind support of Grün Berlin GmbH
Dancing (9)
Thanks to Dancing Opportunities I'm happy we have been selected to FIDCDMX (Mexico City)
with my last work The Rebellious Body (Connecting Fingers Company)interpreted by Nicola Campanelli.
You can read the entire article here:
Thank you Dancing Opportunities!
https://www.yogacenteramherst.com/dancing-awareness/
Thursdays 4-5:15pm EST
Somatic awareness+breath+mindful movement+connection
I am offering the Dancing Awareness class adapted to the online environment. I will continue our exploration and benefiting of the possibilities of playing with networked presence, shared vitality and expanded somatic exploration. I lead the sessions as synthesis of my investigation on somatics, embodied cognition, meditation, dance improvisation and networked performance.
You need a hight speed internet, computer or smart devices with camera and microphone. You can do this class alone or with a group and need at least some space to move and play. You may also adapt the activities to your space and range of movement afforded by it. I suggest to place the device at floor level and be willing to reconnect with you body and with others.
We will use the ZOOM video platform.
This class is produced and supported by
Yoga Center Amherst | Online
Follow instructions here!
http://www.yogacenteramherst.com/online/
Created by San Francisco Bay Area based artist Beth Fein in 2005, dance anywhere® has turned into a world wide dance party with thousands of participants across the globe! Create your profile on the site to put yourself on the dance anywhere® map!
http://www.facebook.com/danceanywhere
Electron-positron interaction from Continum by Brice Leroux
Could you describe a little bit the processes of your work from the beginning…
BL: I guess it depends on every process in particular. Of course, it’s always the first initial point, and it's about the movement and about the perception of this movement. So, I work on certain parameter of movement and then I’m trying to magnify the perception of this for the viewer.
Usually, it’s a physical process. First, it’s about what are your physical cababilities and how far can you go with it? The idea by itself is not important enough; it’s about how we are going with it? How far you’re going to bring it? And about the training with dancers
It’s a long process of building a technique, actually. Of course, it’s not only about us in the studio as performers, but also about the audience. I think that this experience of watching is important. Then, it’s a lot about the scenography, and the light and the costume. How it’s going to allow the audience to focus on the performance. This focusing is important. And I think that these experiments are a mayor issue, although they are not sensing physical experience, it’s about the perception.
Electron-positron interaction from Continum by Brice Leroux
What about these technical parameters? Because you’re using many elements that are based on science… in your work scenography takes an important place, it’s a huge element in your language… basically, the light is dancing, the sound is dancing…
BL: Right! Yeah, as a choreographer I feel as much as a visual artist then a choreographer. Because it’s about the perception of the movement. In this sense I feel like a visual artist and in a way, for me choreography should be a part of visual art. It’s working with the perception, what is specific here we have perception on human movement.
I’m focusing as much on the perception of the movement then on the movement. Of course, I’m also doing costumes, lights, scenography… for me all of these are part of my job, because it’s about the perception of the movement. I have never collaborated with a visual artist for instance, or with a scenographer, or costume designer…
LED cube, photo taken from Instructables
So, you are doing everything by yourself?BL: Yes! But for me it's much more coherent this way, because I can't work on the movement and then let someone else to show it the way they want. I don’t want to work with visual artists who haven’t been through the whole process and decided randomly to pick up some element. This aspect is gonna magnify or hide somehow. I’m responsible for this, and on this way I’m the scenographer, and the costume designer, light designer, because it’s a part of the process.
It has to be me, who goes through all these processes, otherwise it can’t be coherent. It goes along the creation; all these aspects are going to be parallel works. For instance, I can’t work on the movement and then wander how I’m going to show this, it’s all the part of the same process.
I’m working on the light little by little as much as with the movement. It’s all part of the same process, it can’t be divided for me, and it would be totally incoherent to work on the movement and then let someone else decide how it’s gonna be shown.
Continum by Brice Leroux (c)
BL: I want my dancers to go fully with the work. That they wanna go as far as they can building up a new technique every time with a new project, and not being afraid to spend hours and hours in the studio working on one simple thing, trying to bring it as far as they can.
You have rather good connections with Bulgaria? One of the company member is Bulgarian contemporary dancer Krassen Krastev...
BL: This just happened like this. Somehow I ended up in Bulgaria long time ago. I guess that was in 1992, if I’m correct, because I have won this Paris competition as a dancer. That was an arrangement with this competition, which is mostly ballet actually, I won it with contemporary dance, but it just happened that there was no first prize for ballet…
So, they have invited me in Varna to show my work. Of course, it was in the early nineties, still post communism situation, especially in Bulgaria; and there were mostly ballet happenings. I’ve felt a little bit like an alien in the middle of those things. I have showed them a quite contemporary solo in the middle of TuTu’s and point shoes, and Paquitas' and Copelias’… (laughs) which was really weird and I felt like most of the people were wondering what is this weird thing they were watching?
Continum by Brice Leroux (c)
That was quite intense experience. One of these few people was Krassen. When he saw my work, he founded contemporary dance company in Bulgaria, which was the first. So, it felt like there was some kind of connection. Few years later we met again and I proposed him to dance for me, and since then we have been collaborating and it’s been a great collaboration.
What artists did inspire you in your work?
BL: It’s hard to say. There are a lot of artists that I really like. But in my work, I tend to avoid influences because I’m trying to build what I think choreographic work should be. I don’t want to take it for granted that this is dance and I should go for this.
I’m trying to build my own ideas on what contemporary dance, choreographic composition should be for me. Yeah, I don’t feel any influences. I find the work I’m doing as I’m being completely within and that’s the way it should be.
Led Fiber Optics
BL: It’s just a tool. It’s not interesting by itself for me. I don’t need amazing technology. Actually for this solo, it’s the first time that I’m using some sort of new technology which is really simple. It was just this idea that the source light is lighting an object, but the object is being lit by itself, it’s the object itself that is giving light. And for this I had to investigate in new technology and I ended up working with this electronic luminescence which is kind of new.
Actually, it was really complicated to build this show because it was new, you don’t have a lot of information how this thing is going to work. That was the big part of the process to discover how this is working. There was not a lot of information on this. But it's just a tool, it could be something else. In other shows, I’m only using what’s already in the theatre. I’m not using a lot actually, just few lights most of people are using and I’m trying to get the most out of it.
Continum by Brice Leroux (c)
Do you work at the moment on some new piece?
BL: Yeah, I'm coming back to the trajectories in the space. Actually, I'm focusing more on bodies moving in the space and the interaction between the bodies. Rather then the movement of the body in one place, like in the 'Solo#2-Fréquences', where the body is not moving in the space. Then it's about the articulations of the body. I'm coming back more to trajectories and I would like to work now with more people. And again using the theatre context, front stage, big venues… we'll see how it goes…
Thank you, Brice!
Read the first part here: Interview with Brice Leroux, part 1, Dancing lumino kinetics
(Originally published on BodyPixel)
Photo of Brice Leroux by Sandra Piretti (c)
Brice Leroux (b. 1974) graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Lyon in 1992. For his First Solo he received a prize for best contemporary dancer at the Paris International Dance Competition and the Gold Medal of the city of Paris. In 1992 he was awarded a scholarship by the American Dance Festival in North Carolina and completed his training in New York at the studios of Trisha Brown and Merce Cunningham.
In 1994 he moved to Brussels to dance with Rosas. Three years later Brice Leroux decided to give up this work and decided to the study of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Paris VIII. He worked with David Hernandez, George Alexander Van Dam (violinist in the Ictus Ensemble), Sarah Chase, Jean-Luc Ducourt and others.
In his work 'Solo#2-Fréquences' Leroux uses mathematical schemes applied on movements, LED art, and sound tempo. It's a poetic science on trajectories in space. Brice Leroux is a fascinating and uncompromising choreographer; and he doesn't care much about the establishment, but is fully committed to the processes of work.
Brice Leroux: Continum, photo by Wolfgang Kirchner (c)
Therefore, here is Brice Leroux to tell us more on his art_space_sound_body articulations...
Let's start with your education and interest in dance…
BL: First I've been trained as a ballet dancer. I guess like a lot of dancers, I was being educated like this till the age of sixteen and then I oriented myself to contemporary dance. I’ve studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Lyon. Afterwards, I left for the States to study a bit with the Cunningham Studio and with dancers of Trisha Brown Company. Voila! That’s about it, I’m mainly dance trained…
I’m very interested in your American experiences, because techniques by Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown are slightly different… What was it like to work with them?
BL: Right! Well, it’s true, the movements are very different in these two techniques, kind of opposite. For instance, Merce Cunningham did everything as a sort of geometry, whilst in Trisha Brown’s technique everything is more free and more like fluid forms. Trisha’s movements were actually informal in a way.
But at the same time, what was interesting to me was the fact that these techniques are really working mostly on the movement. And there is nothing theatrical in it, a dancer is a dancer and dancers are really not pretending to do something, just letting their bodies to work.
Photo: Gravitations by Brice Leroux (c)
It can’t be abstract and for me really is important to define the art of dancing in a way. Like really playing with your body which is totally something else then being an actor, like pretending to live something else. I don’t feel like I’m pretending anything, I’m just playing with my body and I’m living the sensations it gives me, hoping that this is also 'lived' by the viewer, I guess.
Seems that you are interested lately more in corporal work and kind of minimalism… Is there anything that has triggered this interest particularly? When did you decide to do this kind of aesthetics?
BL: Well, I was just trying to learn as a composer. I guess I needed to focus on one figure at the time. I didn’t study choreography for instance, compositions and these kinds of things. My way of working is actually studying every aspect of what composition is. For instance, if I would work on trajectories in space that’s enough for me to focus on, without a need to also work on arms movement for instance or something else.
For me, there is my own 'composition' I work on and then, I work for the viewer… because I’m also trying to create things to let the viewer see this work on trajectories.
Gravitations-quatuor
I’m not interested in minimalism itself. I’m just interested to focus on one aspect of compositions, if it’s already a full work, that's enough and I don't have to mix everything.
As for the viewer, I wanna show the specific thing I’m working on. I’m dividing it into parameters, only working on certain parameters at time.
What is your relation as a choreographer to the space… to theatre space? More precisely, how do you treat space in your work?
BL: Um, that’s a large question. As for theatre space, I started experimenting with space more like Trisha (Brown), having more events in site specific spaces. Afterwards, I started to go to theatres and then working in some propositions this space gave me, for instance: What is a block box? What is a frontal perception of the audience?
Solo#2-Fréquences by Brice Leroux (c)
In terms of space, what’s interesting for me is the space between bodies. If you are only working with trajectories, the distance between bodies and how they come close or get far from each other. In a way, what’s really visible for me is happening between space and that’s what I’m trying to work on.
OK, now we can switch to music and the importance of the sound in your work. You studied ethnomusicology and came into contact with other cultures through traditional dances ... Why did you decide to go in that direction?
BL: Traditional dances were interesting to me because you are entering the field that's not about the style, specific style that has been built by some choreographer, but was built over the years, decades, centuries.
Photo: Olivier Matterlart (c) from Quantum-Quintet by Brice Leroux
For me that was a way to go toward the source of the pleasure of the movement. It wasn't being built by someone thinking about what movement should be, it’s just something that has been built up over the centuries, something that is very coherent within the society and just a basic pleasure of what dancing is.
Photo: Olivier Matterlart (c) from Quantum-Quintet by Brice Leroux
BL: Yeah, I didn’t want to create my style based on taste. For me that was training, too. As a dancer, I wanted to have all these experiences. But, I don’t wanna be imprisoned with a certain style that I would have to study more then others. I wanted this range of obvious possibilities and from this point, my work is about not deciding on style.
I’ve never decided to use a movement because I think: oh this is nice, so I would do this. So, I’m building this compositional mathematics in order to avoid this. There is some sort of logic and coherence with the project rather then a decision of taste.
I guess, that’s what I’m trying to do, which is somehow opposite to traditional dances. But because it’s opposite, I was really interested in this. I needed to go through all these things to pull away from this, I guess.
Read the second part of the interview with Brice Leroux: Choreographing bodies and spaces
(Originally published on Body Pixel)
