Études (Studies)
World premiere April 13, 2019 at MuMa/ Musée d’Art Moderne André Malraux, Le Havre
Dance: Margot Dorléans
Drawing: Patrice Balvay
Running time: 40 minutes
Production : Du Vivant Sous Les Plis & l'Œ
With support from: GIP-Un Été au Havre / MuMa
Études is a transdisciplinary performance piece which explores the porosity and friction between dance, which spreads out in time, and drawing, which takes a certain amount of space. How can dance space become perceptible and how can the temporality of drawing become more aware? How can drawing animate the body and how can the body in movement produce a drawing? These questions drive and underlie this project by Margot Dorléans and Patrice Balvay.
Collaboration
Studies of the body
The drawings of Edgar Degas at MuMa (Le Havre) were the starting point for this performance piece conceived and performed by the plastician Patrice Balvay and the dancer and choreographer Margot Dorléans. In Degas’ studies of bodies, the line, barely skimmed, supported, repeated – seems to simultaneously erupt and slip away. This lively treatment of line evokes the diversity of the lines of the body which are constantly updating, exterior contour lines, interior flowing lines.
Patrice Balvay and Margot Dorléans found common ground in their experiences in Japan. Études is their third collaboration. They created Prélude à l’exposition (Prelude to the exhibition), consisting of the hanging of and then the interpretation of three drawings from Balvay’s series entitled Drawing by walking. Their next project was Ohana no gisei (The Sacrifice of the Flowers) which is a process, which could be infinite, unending, in which the drawing inspires the dance and the dance inspires the drawing. Whereas in Ohana no gisei workshop time is interwoven with that of the performance, in Études the performance becomes the space for a workshop where the drawing is produced. Also, in Études the body of the dancer as she is moving prints an image on the whitened copper.
Installation
There are three elements laid out on the ground, against a wall: a large copper plate and two large boxes; the performance takes place in the space, creating an installation in situ, in which the audience is invited to roam freely.
Performance au MuMa, Musée d’art Moderne
André Malraux, Le Havre
13 avril 2019
