DOSSIER DE PRESSE the Cover Visual Has Been Created from a Picture by Rahi Rezvani
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DOSSIER DE PRESSE The cover visual has been created from a picture by Rahi Rezvani. Nederlands Dans Theater, Safe as Houses (2001) by Sol León & Paul Lightfoot, dancers: Sarah Reynolds, Marne van Opstal — PRESS CONTACTS Regional and International press Maïwenn Rebours : T : +33 4 67 60 06 12, [email protected] assisted by Clara Kahané : T : +33 4 67 60 06 10 National press Dominique Berolatti : T : +33 6 14 09 19 00, [email protected] Patrica Lopez : T : +33 6 11 36 16 03, [email protected] Jacopo Godani Magali Milian & Romuald Luydlin Mourad Merzouki & Kader Attou Sorour Darabi Sylvain Huc Trisha Brown Akram Khan Michèle Murray Aurélien Bory & Shantala Shivalingappa Camille Decourtye & Blaï Mateu Trias Marlene Monteiro Freitas Paula Pi William Forsythe Yasmeen Godder / Roy Assaf / Hillel Kogan Maud Le Pladec Sylvain Bouillet / Mathieu Desseigne-Ravel / Lucien Reynès Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker & Jean-Guihen Queyras Phia Ménard Paul Lightfoot & Sol León / Marco Goecke / Crystal Pite Fabrice Ramalingom 2 EMBRACING CULTURE AS A SHARED EXPERIENCE The Montpellier Danse Festival, It inspires new vocations, thus already in its 38th year, invites us generating the conditions to consider the essence of this art necessary for its own evolution. of the body and its diverse forms. The community of the faithful Renowned choreographers and followers of the Festival along young talents alike have created art with curious audiences who have pieces that question our collective Françoise Nyssen the opportunity to discover it for relationship to dance. This taste the first time, need to save the for exploration and the unknown Minister date - from June 22 to July 7, 2018. of Culture is what lends the Festival all its This is a moment of exchange and richness introduction, an opportunity for viewers to open up to genres that Its international scope, which broadens with each aren’t often seen, through a program that focuses on year, belies a dedication to bringing audiences neo-classical, contemporary and hip-hop styles. together, and I’m ecstatic that Montpellier Danse is I warmly thank Jean-Paul Montanari and his so attentive to this aspect. Speaking to the broader teams, as well as the public partners, patrons and public, embracing culture as a shared experience, in local authorities who are committed to this event common but as individuals, that’s what drives us. alongside the Ministry of Culture, promoting dance Dance, perhaps more so than other art forms, derives and its democratization. its existence from the passion of the artists, actors Happy Festival to all. and audiences who experience it. 3 IMAGINATIONS AND SENSIBILITIES « To dance is to fight against cultural capital, well beyond our everything that holds us back, borders. We have hosted the world’s everything that drags us down, leading names, and landmark against weight and burden; it is to creations have been presented at the discover, through one’s body, the Festival or during the Montpellier essence and soul of life, it is to come Danse Season. For this 38th edition, into physical contact with freedom » Philippe Saurel Montpellier Danse welcomes the Jean-Louis Barrault, actor and director greatest choreographers, reveals President of Montpellier Mediterranean Metropolis, young talents and gives us a chance Contemporary dance has its Montpellier Mayor to see, or see again, work by the own grammar, vocabulary, and greatest dance choreographers of language. It is an expression of our time. The Festival also pays oneself, it relays emotion and inner tribute to the famous choreographer experience to produce gesture. It rejects tradition. Trisha Brown, who passed away in 2017, and who Every choreographer, every dancer has their own created several pieces in Montpellier; she was a language, their own style. Attending a contemporary regular guest. dance show, or any other show, demands that the Montpellier Danse is a festival of dance creation par spectator open up, as though departing on a journey excellence, an essential cultural event of international elsewhere, as if setting sail. Each dance is a meeting renown. Each year, it offers us no less than a life of choreographer, dancers, spectators - children and lesson. To move us, to rejoice, to jostle, fill us with adults - of different imaginations and sensibilities. new sensations, expand our horizons… and make us As a founding element of the cultural policy dance. undertaken in Montpellier at the beginning of the 80s, dance strongly contributed to our image as a 4 A FUNDAMENTAL PILLAR OF DEMOCRATIC AND CIVIC ACTIVISM Montpellier Danse has always stood and civic activism. Culture signifies for creativity and the 38th edition of openness to others, to differences this festival is no exception. Every and to individual and collective year, the most prominent artists and enrichment. Montpellier Danse select emerging talents come here to is fully invested in this collective present their latest work. This year, spirit. Contemporary dance is one several companies from the Occitan Carole Delga of the touchstones of our region’s Region will be treading the Festival cultural identity and occupies an Former Minister boards with new shows: Michèle President of the Region essential place in its cultural policy. Murray from Montpellier, La Zampa Occitanie / Pyrénées-Méditerranée It is entirely natural that we lend from Nîmes, the Ballet du Capitole our support to the Festival, as we from Toulouse, Baro d’evel from do for other important institutions Gensac-sur-Garonne... that contribute to the vitality of The Occitan / Pyrenees- choreographic expression across the Mediterranean Region is delighted and proud to be region. I wish you all beautiful moments of exchange a major partner of an event that contributes to the and emotion during this, the 38th Montpellier Danse cultural reputation of our region throughout the world. Festival! The central pillar of the Region’s cultural policy is to promote access to culture for all, everywhere. For me, culture is a fundamental pillar of democratic 5 A CITY OF DREAMS Like Wild Strawberries, Ingmar communion, debate, laughter or tears, Bergman’s film, where the old astonishment or passion? And what university professor wanders in a is more, I wondered how long I could dream through a pale, silent, dead city, subsist in a world where the eye and I walked through a strange world. the ear saw or heard nothing that was I quickly understood where this living, surprising, seductive or even impression came from: there was no shocking. Curiously, I noticed that the theatre, no cinema, no dance hall on Michel Miaille disappearance of all these seemingly the streets: the opera was shut and Montpellier Danse President useless things like music and dance, the music halls had been turned into books and museums, libraries and warehouses. Search as I might, the street-art, heralded the disappearance museums had disappeared, as had of all social life. No more encounters, the exhibition halls, the workshops no more debates, no more discoveries and all creative areas. There were or confrontations: no need to meet our no conference rooms, libraries or archives either: even fellow men and share ourselves. the learned academies had merged into a grey and drab What does one do in a dead city? universe. Intrigued, I pushed on: but bookstores no longer One reanimates it - that is to say, one invites the musicians existed, nor even booksellers, and the record stores had and dancers, actors and booksellers, record shops and shut up shop. On and on, I found that radio broadcasting luthiers; and the painters of street-art and the museum houses - the de facto free radios - and television studios no curators and free radio producers. In short, all these longer existed. There were no more painting studios, no useless things were the very essence of life in the city. art photography studios, let alone musicians and luthiers’ I appealed to all those who were directly or indirectly workshops. And even the walls had become strangely responsible for this great healing project: encouraging and clean, or rather uniformly grey: not a single image, street- helping others to return diversity and astonishment to the art had disappeared and with it the winks of the bicycle- city, to spread colour and surprise, to bring equality to benders atop the houses! those who are forgotten, to raise up, reunite and resuscitate Even the historical monuments had vanished, and with the dreams of all those who lived in the city. With that, I them the enchanted stories of times past. saw friendly, anonymous faces approaching, along came The mixture of eras and styles, and the novelties of the authorities responsible for what is called culture... I had inspired architects had given way to the uniform been heard! That’s when I woke up. regularity of all that is soulless and passionless. And on the town square, neither rappers nor hip hop dancers produced notes of fantasy and freedom that had animated afternoons past. Not a soul crossed my path: what exactly does one do in a city where there is nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to be surprised about or moved by - nothing that arouses 6 FACE À L’INACCEPTABLE, SOYONS HUMAINS, AGISSONS ! DO BETTER (or, at least as well as) than the last Festival… after such a successful edition with such high quality works presented by Sharon Eyal, Emanuel Gat, Marlene Monteiro Freitas or Hans van Manen. Finally, simply striving to make Festival number 38, graced by the presence of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Akram Khan, Maud Le Pladec and… Marlene Monteiro Freitas (with the Batsheva Dance Company), as vibrant as its predecessor. PERSEVERING in presenting major European companies to our audiences: Jacopo Godani, a company between Frankfurt and Dresden (or, how to follow on from Forsythe); José Carlos Martinez, with his Spanish company from Madrid, and a special Forsythe night (him again!); the sublime Nederlands Dans Theater, led now by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot (with a new piece by Crystal Pite, and another by Marco Goecke), as well as the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse, with creations by young Israeli choreographers (Godder, Assaf and Kogan).