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| François Verret - La Compagnie FV |
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François Verret’s dance is theatrical, literary and highly physical.
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| Sans retour |
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Created in June 2006 in Théâtre National de Bretagne-Rennes.
Direction François Verret
Choreography and acting Mathurin Bolze, Mitia Fedotenko, Marta Izquierdo Munoz, Dimitri Jourde, Angela Laurier, Line Tørmoen
Singing Dorothée Munyaneza
Texts from The Fiery Hunt, by the American poet Charles Olson (1910-1970), inspired by the reading of Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Duration : 50 minutes
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One could say in a childlike way that a stage is a ship with a captain, and a crew; that it is a human microcosm that embarks upon an adventure led by a director and that there is always the risk that this latter will reveal him/herself to be some kind of more or less laughable Ahab, crazy, a monomaniac, tyrannical, self-destructive…
But the stage here is also empty, white, subjectively immense, which cannot be used for narrative, cannot be preoccupied with telling the story of Moby Dick but rather of inventing in this fiction that which relates to our own story, to ourselves.
What is being played on stage through this tale, spoken, sung by Ishmael of the hunt of a white whale led by Captain Ahab and his crew is a movement of loss, dangerous, blind, that seems to speak of the human in general; that speaks of the world in which we live.
It’s about a pursuit, an insatiable quest, endless, imperative, that makes people unable to stop or be satisfied with the substitutes to this absolute they are looking for.
What gives Captain Ahab the feeling that he exists is the exaltation and deployment of physical human strength towards a goal that he reckons will be “grandiose”, even if it’s a delusion.
What inhabits him is the desire for storms and not for calm.
He goes from storm to storm, with thirsts of pure intensity because they give way to pleasure, a sense of vertigo.
The stage is the place where interior and exterior forces are visible that shake, manhandle and upset beings embarked on an endless hunt, who are subject to fear, to irrational contradictory desires and to the atmospheric violence of the world in which they live.
What they seek to attain so obstinately is the white whale…
The white whale is of course a metaphor, a passion, the other, an impossibility, a truth, it is all the forces of evil, it is a work of art, it is a utopia… in short, it is everything anyone wants to ascribe to it.
What is important is to track it, to seize it, tame it, capture it, kill it symbolically at the risk of it killing you…
The question is: what is going on between the hunter and the prey?
From the perspective of our own intimacy, what is it about this dangerous game, which is partly blind, that pushes people into an obscure but vital battle?
Just how far should one follow someone?
Why?
And if this very one crazy, what is to be done?
And on a political scale, where the craving for absolute, the will to dominate and the fantasy of power are so omnipresent, is it possible to stage the failure of this faith in the absolute that is still being run down today by every sort of ideology?
François Verret, spring 2006
Many thanks to Jacques Gandemer, Nolwenn Goupil, Goury, Cécile Kretschmar, Zouzou Leyens, Jean Marc Ogier, Maurice Salem, and to the staff of TNB
Delegated production Théâtre National de Bretagne (TNB) - Rennes
Co-production Festival d’Avignon, Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, Opéra de Lille, L’apostrophe - Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d’Oise, La Compagnie FV François Verret is an associated artist with Théâtre National de Bretagne.
La Compagnie FV is supported by DRAC Ile de France, French Ministry for Culture and Communication and Conseil Régional Ile-de-FranceFrançois Verret is in residence at L’apostrophe - Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d’Oise.
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Ice
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Creation in march 2008 in Théâtre National de Bretagne-Rennes
Direction François Verret
Text Anna Kavan
With Graham Valentine et Martin Schultz
With Alessandro Bernardeschi, Marta Izquierdo, Dorothée Munyaneza, Hanna Hedman… (cast tbc)
Scenography Vincent Gadras and François Verret
Light Christian Dubet
Duration : 1:10
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| Addiction (Title tbc) |
Date and place of creation TBC
– Season 2008/2009
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2005 « In the back of my mind »
Production La compagnie FV, L’apostrophe, Scène Nationale de Cergy-Pontoise et du Val d’Oise, La halle aux grains, Scène Nationale de BloisLe grand Théâtre de la ville de Luxembourg
2004 « Contrecoup », d’après la lecture d’Absalon, Absalon ! de William Faulkner
Production La compagnie FV, Théâtre National de Bretagne – Rennes, Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, Opéra de Lille
2003 « Chantier Musil », à partir de la lecture de L'Homme sans qualités de Robert Musil
Production La compagnie FV, Théâtre National de Bretagne – Rennes, Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre des Salins – Scène Nationale de Martigues, Le Cargo - Maison de la Culture de Grenoble
Avec le soutien du Parc de la Villette dans le cadre des résidences 2002 Avec le concours du Ministère de la Culture et de la communication dans le cadre du dispositif DICREAM
2000 « Bartleby », d'après la nouvelle (based on the short story of) d'Herman Melville,
Bartleby le Scribe
Production La Compagnie FV, Théâtre National de Bretagne / Rennes, Théâtre de la Ville / Paris, Espace des Arts / Chalon sur Saône, Polyphon
1999 « Fin et début »
Production La compagnie FV, Théâtre de la Commune - Centre Dramatique National d'Aubervilliers, Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Polyphon
1998 « Kaspar Konzert »
Production La compagnie FV, Les Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers, Quartz de Brest Centre National Dramatique et Chorégraphique de Brest, Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, Théâtre National de Bretagne - Rennes, La Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations |
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François Verret
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A choreographer since 1980, all his shows were created in close collaboration with other artists : actors such as Daniel Emilfork, Daniel Kenigsberg, Frédéric Leidgens and Alain Rigout, dancers such as Anne Koren, Bernardo Montet, Mathilde Monnier and Jean-Christophe Pare, musicians such as Ghédalia Tazartes, Yumi Nara, Fred Frith and Jean-Pierre Drouet, plastic artists such as Goury and Claudine Brahem, and lighting designers such as Rémi Nicolas and Christian Dubet.
In 1980, he won first prize at the Bagnolet choreography contest for the play Tabula Rasa.
His other work includes :
Fin de parcours (1982), Les Portes d’Italie, In illo Tempore for the GRCOP (a choreography research group that is part of the Paris Opera), Une éclipse totale de soleil (1983), La Latérale de Charlie for the CNDC at Angers, Illusions Comiques, La for the GRCOP, La Chute de la Maison Carton (1986), Det Kommer, Det Kommer for the Cullberg Ballet, Quel est le secret ? (1987), L’Horloge en folie, L. et Eux, La Nuit, Faustus (1990), Le vent de sa course, Où commencer ? (1992), Nous sommes des vaincus (1994), Rapport pour une académie (1996), Sur l’air de Marlborough with the Ecole Nationale des Arts du Cirque, Memento (1997), Qui voyez-vous ? (1997), Kaspar Konzert (1998), Fin et début (1999), and Bartleby (2000), Chantier Musil (2003), Tokyo Musil (2004), Contrecoup (2005). In 2006 he created Sans retour at the Théâtre National de Bretagne in Rennes. The piece will be on tour during 2007-2008.
From 1993 to 2000, he was artistic director at the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, and remains its president to this day.
In 2002, he received the SACD Choreographic Prize. |
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Sans retour
Le Monde, by Rosita Boisseau, 20 July 2006- Extracts
(…) « François Verret’s scenic writing accedes here to a limpidity in tumultuousness that is almost unreal. Spectral lighting for mental cataclysm, a couple rearing up or held in the softness of their embrace, a balancing game between two men on a raft that imagines it’s a boat, everything is orchestrated according to a rigorous design. The rhythmic cut-out of the piece overlaps with the choreographed sequences, the music, the text, the thrum of the fans to raise a hurricane.
Since his first spectacle in 1980, which was not called Tabula Rasa (Blank Slate) by chance, François Verret tells the existential tale of a man who is shaping himself as close as possible to his inner truth with an ever finer hand. Ahab’s obsession for his whale harpoons in each of us this penchant for the extreme that at times holds us hostage. »
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Libération, by Maïa Bouteillet, 20 July 2006 - Extracts
(…) It is a horizontal dance that is very anchored in the ground, whose gentleness contrasts with the thundering of its dramatic device. There are magnificent duets in group scenes of infectious energy; everyone seems to be completely carried away by the movement of madness. No return is possible in fact. (…)
The way in which they are irresistibly caught up – never ceasing to dance like they were hitting their heads against a wall, as though their lives depended on it – in metallic cylinders like the enormous mouth of the monster, constitutes one of the most beautiful images of a breathless full hour long spectacle.
The Absolute. It is a tense spectacle from beginning to end that succeeds in procuring a lasting sensation in so little time through the kind of repetition appropriate to relentlessness. It could in fact continue for hours as it is about an insatiable quest for the absolute. (…)
Sans Retour proves, if there was such a need, that the creator’s rage and desire remain intact, as well as his capacity to tame weird old boats.
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Contrecoup
Le Monde, by Rosita Boisseau, 28 may 2005
François Verret has pulled off the difficult feat of offering us a work which is strange yet familiar, which dances and breathes, gasps and heaves, alighting with acuteness on the painful knots of the novel. Gutsy and intellectual, simple and sophisticated, Contrecoup is also a matter of excellent performers.
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Sans retour // Compagnie FV // Season 2007-2008
October 5, 2007 : L’Espal, Le Mans (France)
October 16, 2007 : Espaces Pluriels, Pau (France)
October 19, 2007 : Opéra-Comédie, Montpellier Danse, Montpellier (France)
October 24 & 25, 2007 : Théâtre de St Quentin en Yvelines (France)
April 1 & 2, 2008 : Le Manège, Reims (France)
April 5, 2008 : Théâtre de Cornouailles, Quimper (France)
April 8 to 10, 2008 : MC2, Grenoble (France)
April 22, 2008 : Espace des Arts, Châlons-sur-Saône (France)
April 29, 2008 : Théâtre du Passage, Neuchâtel (Suisse)
May 6, 2008 : Le Pornichet (France)
May 16, 2008 : Maison de la Culture, Bourges (France)
May 21 & 22, 2008 : CRAC Cherbourg (France)
May 30, 2008 : Théâtre de l’Onde, Vélizy (France)
Ice // Compagnie FV // Season 2007-2008
March 3 to 6, 2008 : Théâtre National de Bretagne-Rennes (France)
March 12 to 23, 2008 : Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers (France)
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