IN SITU, research workshop on dance movement

IN SITU, research workshop on dance movement led by Régine Chopinot

For her research work about indigenous cultures in the Pacific, Régine Chopinot will lead a contemporary dance workshop entitled ’IN SITU’ from the 7 to the 14 of December. 15 artists from New Zealand, New Caledonia, the Cook Islands, Samoa and France will take part in the workshop. It will be held at Tapu Te Ranga marae in Island Bay.

The objective of this workshop is to link Régine’s company Cornucopiae with local dancers and choreographers in the hope of creating an artistic project using myths and Pacific traditions.

Régine Chopinot

In a career spanning 30 years, Régine Chopinot has lived through the emergence (in the ‘70s), development (in the ‘80s), institutionalisation (in the ‘90s) and commercialisation (in the years since 2000) of contemporary dance. From her home in France she actively participated in the writing of the first two chapters of the still brief history of a new art. From 1986 to 2008, she directed for one of France’s important national dance centres (the CCN in La Rochelle). She steadfastly refuses to push her creative energies down already well-trodden paths.

IN SITU, research workshop into danced movement led by Régine Chopinot.

Working through the medium of In Situ, the vision that Régine Chopinot and her team are currently seeking to realise is that of a common ground, of a vigorous dialogue between tradition and modernity.

The objective is to link Régine’s association Cornucopiae with local dancers and choreographers with the ambition to create an artistic project around myths of Pacific traditions.

Dates: December 7 – 13 2011 Location: Wellington Duration: 6 hours a day for 5 days Costs: All travelling costs, accommodation and per diems will be covered Nature of the workshop:

Each day will begin with a “body-awareness” session, linking movement and control of breath (2 hours) and will be followed up with a workshop (4 hours) on listening and dialogue in improvised dance.

The means and objectives will be presented by the choreographer with the idea of creating a framework which will be as much rhythmic as spatial. At the same time the workshop will be videoed both as part of the experimental work and as a sort of documentary montage that will eventually serve as a record of the venture.

It’s also envisaged that the end of the session will be opened up to the public when a 30- minute form will be shown. More about the project In Situ: The adventure starts in May 2010 with In Situ in Drehu. The Cornucopiae team met and worked with a small group of artists, dancers and musicians from Wetr, in Lifou in the Loyalty Islands. This encounter gave rise to a choreographic sketch EKE-ENY (the 4 winds) and a film tracing the different stages of the work that can be viewed at www.cornucopiae.net.

The finished work will be presented at the Avignon festival in June 2012 and throughout Europe and the Pacific zone later on. NOTE CONCERNING THE INTENTION by Régine Chopinot WALK DREAM EXPERIMENT RISK QUESTION DOUBT LISTEN HEAR SEE OBSERVE DANCE Following an initial journey in May 2009 and a second in December/January 2010, I now feel certain that there’s “something” to be done, some work to be imagined in New Caledonia in the South Pacific.

Since I’m currently only in the first stages of a project, artistic intuition has obviously a lot to do with this conviction but it’s clear too that, after 30 years of creative work in dance, I feel the need to continue to broaden my study of the body in movement in cultural contexts other than those offered by the Europe by which I was formed.

It’s a need that’s evident: to confront that which I don’t yet know, which is remote and which poses questions about the meaning of being human in every sense. For the artist-dancer-choreographer that I am, to travel and feel myself “worked on” through the encounter with other cultures has always been of primary importance.

The exchange is essential as much for the creativity it engenders in itself as for how it transforms how things are seen. Alongside my work in France running the Centre Chorégraphique in La Rochelle from 1986 to 2008, in the course of numerous tours in Europe and across the world – particularly in Brazil, China, and more recently Vietnam - I’ve specifically sought to create, research into, teach and share this passion for the art of choreography.

Nothing in these encounters has been premeditated. They’ve always developed out of a mutual eagerness, nursed and watched over by time without which no true, enduring work occurs. On each occasion a new adventure has been woven from the strands of a unique and potent experience. The simple truth is «"I’m a daughter of the sea"».

Born and brought up on the Algerian coast and having worked for the last 20 years beside the Atlantic at La Rochelle, the fact that I’m now nurturing a new project on the other side of the world on shores washed by the Pacific, doesn’t in the least surprise me. To the imagination that sustains all my energy and informs all my dancing, the sea is a constant source and resource… I do things slowly. I like to take my time.

I have to be patient and methodical. Turning to face the unknown I go one step at a time, carefully, gently. You have to sniff the air without being rushed. You have to be willing not to know, to grope forward, to watch and be watched, to try things out.

And then sometimes you find a way, often where it’s least expected. That’s what the zest for invention is all about. I’ve a capacity to hang in, to commit myself without asking anything in return and to be open to the unexpected. That’s how I bring things together—by being both detached and involved.

Dancers aren’t solitary beings; they prefer dialogue. Hence, for this project, I’ll be accompanied by the guitarist and author of texts for theatre, Gianni Fornet, by the sound technician, Nicolas Barillot and by João Garcia, photographer and film-maker—artists, friends, partners.

Since January 2009 I’ve a new creative team known collectively as CORNUCOPIAE, that’s to say ‘horn of plenty’, a name inspired by the conch-like shells into which people blow and which you see over the homes of certain Melanesian tribes. This independent company is supported by the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - Direction Générale de la Création Artistique (D.G.C.A).
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