Repertory | Van Grimde Corps Secrets

‹ PERSPECTIVES – MONTRÉAL ›

The choreographer Isabelle Van Grimde pursues her own path, sweeping other arts along in the slipstream of her dance.

Working closely with the dancers, these guest artists will use their respective mediums to appropriate the choreographic excerpts, and to create a new context for them. In this way, Isabelle Van Grimde hopes to discover what aspects of her work are highlighted by these artists in other fields, and how they chose to inscribe their own signature within it.

This process addresses the whole question of context, its influence on how the body and choreographic language are perceived. What remains of the essence of a piece after the work on the body has been confronted with a different context?

While Isabelle Van Grimde’s choreographic language is the thread that weaves the performance together, the theme of Perspectives is the perception of the human body. The guest artists will be able to refer freely to, and to integrate within their own creation, excerpts from Van Grimde’s The Body in Question, a research project conducted with specialists in various fields.

Premiered in 2007 at Festival TransAmériques de Montréal (CANADA)

Artistic and Choreographic Concept	: Isabelle Van Grimde
In collaboration with — Theatre Directors	: Martine Beaulne Marie Brassard Dominique Leduc Alice Ronfard
— Painter	: John Brown
— Videographer	: Martin Lemieux
— Composer	: Thomas Gossage
Set Design	: Anick La Bissonnière
Lighting	: Éric Belley
Performers	: Marie Brassard, Esther Gaudette, Ceinwen Gobert Berit Jentzsch, Anna Liani, Pierre-Marc Ouellette
Duration	: 1 h 15 min

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‹ VORTEX I, II AND III ›
Van Grimde Corps Secrets - Nouvel Ensemble Moderne

“Our slightest gesture is steeped in the heritage of thousands of years of physical, sensual, cultural, social, spiritual and political evolution. The dancing body is a way of connecting with who we are today. It also revives our awareness of the link between what we are and what we have been.. ”
Isabelle Van Grimde

VORTEX I and II : on stage, 5 dancers, 6 musicians and one conductor...

Isabelle Van Grimde continues her investigation of the link betwen contemporary dance and contemporary music by joining forces with the world-renowned Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM) and its artistic director and conductor
Lorraine Vaillancourt. The NEM director very generously offered up the company repertoire to Van Grimde, and the choreographer selected Vortex Temporum (1994-96) from French composer Gérard Grisey which is a major piece in the contemporary repertoire.

Vortex is born from :

· a meeting between Isabelle Van Grimde and the conductor Lorraine Vaillancourt that quickly evolved into an exchange of ideas and an elaboration of visions about the link between music and dance.

· a research project undertaken by Isabelle Van Grimde called The Body in Question in which she interviews artists, scientists and other professionals interested in the body. This research serves to renew her perception of the dancing body – which, for a choreographer, is the primary material – and to substantially deepen her understanding of the human body, its fragility, its strength, its unknown dimensions, both light and dark... Moving the body closer to its humanity progressively pushes Isabelle Van Grimde away from an architectural vocabulary, bringing her to a more visceral and sensible approach to the body; to a study of its elementary pulsions and tensions.

· a questionning of the roles held by dancers and choreographer during the creation process. Inspired by the "open creation" principles, the choreographer establishes a different relationship with choreographic structure and working with the dancers.

Collaborators :
NEM (Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Montreal), Agora de la danse (Montreal), Canada Dance Festival (Ottawa), Arsenal de Metz (France)

Artistic and Choreographic Concept	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Dance	: Erin Flynn
	: Esther Gaudet
	: Ceinwen Gobert
	: Pierre-Marc Ouellette
	: George Stamos
Music	: Vortex Temporum (Gérard Grisey)

Nouvel Ensemble Moderne - NEM	Director : Lorraine Vaillancourt Simon Aldrich : clarinet, Brian Bacon : viola, Jacques Drouin : piano Alain Giguère : violon, Guy Pelletier: flute, Catherine Perron: cello

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‹ LES CHEMINS DE TRAVERSE ›

Musicians and dancers are fully invested in the creation process and must maintain the state of alertness that is so vital to improvisation.

Because she considers the extended research period that stems from the creative process as important as the final work, Isabelle Van Grimde has devised three sessions bringing music and dance together, using improvisation as the mode of exchange. For each encounter, the choreographer and the composer will define a structure that will ultimately be subject to the decisions taken by the players on stage. The dancers’ improvisations, meanwhile, are derived from the material being researched for the company’s current work. The interaction sustained between the artists creates an intense dynamic, and allows audiences to seize upon the links between music and dance and their performers in new ways. Again, in this context, the choreographer is creating from three elements she considers fundamental: body, space and time.

Since the very beginning of her career, Isabelle Van Grimde has been drawn to improvisation to nourish her choreographic research. Her complex choreographic language demands, on the part of her dancers, an acute awakening, and when they achieve that state of awakening and finish the score; the result is imprinted with the beauty and the sensuality of human intelligence.
An ardent supporter of an authentic dialogue between music and dance, Isabelle Van Grimde never reduces music to being a soundscape in her work. This series of shows opens a new perspective on her choreographic process, but especially offers exceptional moments of dance to the public.

PREMIERED IN MAY 2005 AT AGORA DE LA DANSE IN MONTREAL (CANADA)

Choreography and artistic direction	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Assistant to the choreographer	: Erin Flynn
Dancers	: Erin Flynn
	: Chanti Wadge
	: Esther Gaudet
	: Ceinwen Gobert
	: David Rancourt
	: George Stamos
Technical direction and lighting	: Philippe Dupeuroux
Sound	: Jean-François Gagnon

Thom Gossage Other Voices	Thom Gossage, Rémi Bolduc, Frank Lozano, Miles Perkin
Nouvel Ensemble Moderne	Guy Pelletier, Alain Giguère, Simon Aldrich, Catherine Perron, Brian Bacon, Jacques Drouin
Michel Frigon, Jean-Marc Bouchard, Chantale Laplante, Julien Roy

Press clippings

Les chemins de traverse was born of the desire, on the part of choreographer Isabelle Van Grimde, to share with the public moments of beauty and unforeseen exaltation that surge from improvisation, to taste the creation of a work. Other choreographers have done this before her - the idea is nothing new – but she succeeds particularly well in twinning rigor and freedom of space.
Frédérique Doyon, Le Devoir, May 6,2005

Without pause, nor dead time – a risk that is intrinsic to the form – we are ceaselessly surprised and challenged by the dialogues that channel and evolve between the dancers, in solo, duets or groups, but also between dancers and musicians, between a series of varied successive faces that explore different means of influence and interactions, to finish, in the last five minutes, in a veritable bouquet, a group harmony where the dancers end up on the floor, enclosed in a sonorous case.
Aline Apostolska, La presse, May 8, 2005

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‹ EROSIO ›
new version

A dialogue between dance and music, in which bodies and sounds mingle and intertwine.

Musicians are integrated into the choreography, which plays with the dynamics of the component elements to make them interdependent. Relationships are explored and with a blend of abstraction and sensitivity a world is created of souls reacting to each other. Underlying themes such as Eros and Corrosion were developed in a process of collaboration between the artists.

A choreography-concert for four performers initiated by Rémi Bolduc, a much acclaimed saxophonist in the forefront of contemporary music and jazz in Montreal and North America.

A co-production between Van Grimde Corps Secrets and Art and Soul Productions in association with Agora de la Danse and Maison de la Culture Frontenac (Montreal).

PREMIERED IN FEBRUARY 2002 AT AGORA DE LA DANSE IN MONTREAL AND PERFORMED IN POTSDAM (GERMANY), LEIPZIG (GERMANY) AND BRATISLAVA (SLOVAKIA) IN MAY 2002 AND IN APRIL 2004, IN THREE MAISONS DE LA CULTURE DE MONTREAL, AT BREDA (THE NETHERLANDS), ARNHEM (THE NETHERLANDS), GRONINGEN (THE NETHERLANDS) AND IN LUDWIGSHAFEN (GERMANY).

Choreography and artistic direction	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Original music	: Michel Frigon
Musical direction and saxophone	: Rémi Bolduc
Percussion	: Philip Hornsey
Dancers	: Erin Flynn
	: Chanti Wadge
Lighting	: Caroline Ross
Length	: 50 minutes

REVIEWS

SUCCESSFUL FUSION OF DANCE AND MUSIC - The idea (to fuse music and danse) truly came to life, bringing the audience pleasure in a global sense, filling eyes, ears, limbs, all through the appeal to the imagination, fed by the undulating movements, the perfect straight lines suddenly broken, the continuous contact between musicians and dancers. (…). Effectively, Erosio achieves this burning, but nonetheless, subtle mix of eros and erosion. Aline Apostolksa – La presse – March 2002.

A JOY FOR THE EYE - The choreographer van Grimde combines soft and explosive, and gentle and aggressive moments in her dialogue that takes place on several levels. In doing this, she creates an interlinkage of movement and music that goes under the skin. The audience was enthusiastic. Marion Hartig - Potsdamer Tanztage [12. Contemporary Dance Festival in the city of Potsdam, Germany] - May 21, 2002.

RICH ENCOUNTER - Isabelle Van Grimde wanted dance and music to meet in a new way, above and beyond the unique process (…). A master in the art of constructing and deconstructing clean lines, of organizing space with the body-material (…).
These bodies that fragment without ever becoming divested of their vibrant flesh, two milestones in the passionate journey of this obrilliant artist. Isabelle Poulin – Le Devoir – March 1st, 2002.

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‹ SAETTA ›

Saetta, “arrow” in Italian, conveys the idea of movement, of a very precise trajectory; the title's Latin root is evocative of Sagittarius in reference to the horse which is a dynamic component of the creative process.

Beginning: the meeting between two creators, from two distinct art forms – dance and music – their thinking wonderfully in harmony. Four-handed, they are creating a choreography/concert for six performers – musicians and dancers connecting in an everchanging mosaic of music and movement.

The movement inspires both the score and the choreography. The composer’s tactile and gestural approach to her relationship with the instrument will result in a musical composition that is both audible and visible, in which both dance and music have a part. The choreographer, who creates a polyphonic perception of the dance for the spectator, will combine a balance of dance and music in her choreography.

The creation is the result of a shared work on the energy of sound and the impact of movement. The two creators play with extremes. As Marie-Hélène Fournier stretches the musician and his instrument to their extreme limits so Isabelle Van Grimde juxtaposes bodies stretched to the limit of their physical abilities, the resulting confrontation expressing contrasts, punctuation and differing points of view of the same movement or the same phrase.

CHOREOGRAPHY/CONCERT for six interpreters - four dancers and two musicians. Saetta is a coproduction of Van Grimde Corps Secrets, Artefact (France), the Centre Chorégraphique National de Rennes et de Bretagne (France) and the Arsenal de Metz (France).

Choreography and artistic direction	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Musical composition	: Marie-Hélène Fournier
Cello	: Alexis Descharmes
Piano	: Yukari Bertocchi-Hamada
Dancers	: Robert Meilleur
	: Erin Flynn
	: Brianna Lombardo
	: Chanti Wadge
Lighting	: Philippe Dupeyroux
Costumes	: Chanti Wadge
Length	: 50 minutes

REVIEWS

VAN GRIMDE REALLY HAS SOMETHING SPECIAL GOING ON.
She sculpts space and I love how the idea of the trajectory translates into movements that are very precise, and a vocabulary that is unique., she never works with theatricality in the language itself, but rather with the total conception. To all intensive purposes, what we see is dramatic, in fact. There is an abstraction, but it’s never cold. Really, we are transported here.
Philip Szporer, Radio-Canada, November 10, 2003

SAETTA is also about the body in arrow like motion. Dancers do not so much move as slice through space: arms “windmill” the air; legs split wide open in multiple, rapid scissor jumps; torsos tilt downward in penchés, the extended back leg sweeping in a high arc over to the side. …Saetta is a refreshing gust of simple and austere beauty, a performance without an agenda. Apollonian indeed.
Kena Herod, Maisonneuve, Septembre 2003

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Esquisse 1 : ‹ Lina 1999 ›

As supple and malleable as clay, Lina allowed herself to be sculpted, her body manipulated, stretched to extremes by the choreographer’s hands.

In 1999, Lina Malenfant commissioned a solo from Isabelle Van Grimde - giving her carte blanche.

Lina superimposed her keen sensitivity and let the movement speak naturally – pure movement as the only vehicle of a sensitive being.

Premiered at Tangente in Montreal (CANADA) in 1999 and presented in february 2002 at Agora de la Danse IN Montreal (CANADA) and performed in Potsdam (Germany), Leipzig (Germany) and Bratislava (Slovakia).

Choreographer	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Original music	: Thomas Gossage
Dancer	: Lina Malenfant
Length	: 8 minutes

Graffiti pour une nuit blanche ‹ 2000 ›
Commissioned by the Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal (2000)

Acting as an echo and counterpoint to the musical score, Graffiti pour une nuit blanche retains a kind of wildness in its impetus, responding to an interior call, like a cry which seeps from the body and to which the body gives expression.

A solo created for Robert Meilleur, Graffiti pour une nuit blanche surfaces from the same stream as Pour quatre corps et mille parts inséparables. It evinces the same source of inspiration, the same spirit in the physical expression.

Between resistance and abandon, strength and vulnerability, the dancer gives himself completely to this inner conversation, and becomes at one and the same time, dance, music and space.

Premiered at Salle Pierre Mercure IN Montreal (Canada) in May 2000 and performed at the Capitole in Quebec city (Canada) and at Agora de la danse in Montreal (Canada) in March 2002, in Potsdam (Germany), in Leipzig (Germany) and in Bratislava (Slovakia).

Choreographer	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Original music	: Sean Ferguson
Dancers	: Robert Meilleur
Lighting	: Caroline Ross
Length	: 12 minutes

Pour quatre corps et mille parts inséparables ‹ 2000 ›

By shaping the body to make movement an exquisite new form of writing, intertwining words and breaking down and restructuring codes, the identity of each body can be retraced, people who meet for a moment, each finding in the other the echo of the self. Bathed in light inspired by the universe of American painter Mark Rothko, the body reveals its infinite sensitivity.

A first version, Pour trois corps et mille parts inséparables was presented in spring 2000 at Théâtre du Manège – Scène Nationale de Maubeuge (France). The piece has been expanded with the introduction of a fourth performer, the addition-giving rise to a rereading of its vocabulary of movement.

Coproduced by Van Grimde Corps Secrets and Théâtre du Manège – Scène Nationale de Maubeuge (France) in association with Agora de la danse Montreal (Canada).

This piece was presented in Maubeuge (France), Potsdam and Dresden (Germany), Warsaw and Lublin (Poland), Breda and Arnhem (The Nederlands), Antwerp (Belgium) and Montréal (Canada).

Choreographer	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Music	: Sound montage by Thomas Gossage based on excerpts from : Robert Normandeau : Denis Smalley : Randall Smith
Dancers	: Annie-Claude Coutu Geoffroy
	: Zoë Poluch
	: Elise Vanderborght
	: Charlotte Grant
Lighting	: Caroline Ross
Length	: 40 minutes

REVIEW

“A Thousand Parts–Inseparable contained many images full of atmosphere, by the end condensed into graceful slow-motion – a joining of human bodies and minds. This choreography was elegant and well thought out. The piece revealed secrets of the body and gave movement a lively voice. The applause was very enthusiastic.” Georg Martinger - Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten (Germany), November 2000.

Trois vues d’un secret ‹ 2000 ›

Like a visual artist painting the same image at three different times of the day, the choreographer has created three versions of the same solo.

Following an initial fruitful collaboration in spring 2000, Isabelle Van Grimde and conductor Véronique Lacroix reunited to further pursue their artistic association with an irresistible proposition — creating a single solo piece set to three original musical scores of various lengths commissioned by the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal and composed by James Harley, Serge Arcuri and Michael Oesterle.

Using the same language of movement, lighting and performance space, she manages to get her dancers to fashion three distinct worlds, like three breaths illuminating a theme that is close to her heart - the secret of the body. By moulding bodies and sound and playing with dynamics and atmosphere, Isabelle Van Grimde explores the power of music and pursues her research into identity.

Coproduced by Van Grimde Corps Secrets and the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal in association with Agora de la danse in Montréal (Canada).

Performed in Potsdam and Dresden (Germany), Warsaw and Lublin (Poland), Breda and Arnheim (The Netherlands), Antwerp (Belgium) and Montreal (Canada).

Choreographer	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Original music	: James Harley
	: Serge Arcuri
	: Michael Oesterle
Dancers	: Annie-ClaudeCoutu Geoffroy
	: Zoë Poluch
	: Elise Vanderborght
	: Charlotte Grant
Lighting	: Caroline Ross
Length	: 35 minutes

Review

“Last weekend the Canadian double bill by Isabelle Van Grimde was presented on stage, on the theme ‘Secret Bodies’ –a jewel of choreographic creativity and dance finesse.” - Franz Anton Cramer, Märkische Allgemeine (Germany), November 2000.

Maisons de poussière ‹ 1999 ›

Inhabited by the interpreters, forms inspired by cubism emerge as if from their very flesh.

Evoking the Constructivism of the Twenties, Isabelle Van Grimde recreates, in dance form, the kinetic energy that animates the human body and creates its identity. Movement reveals two apparently conflicting desires: for abandonment to the senses, and for the assemblage and structuring of materials to construct forms that are, by their nature, eternally transitory. Like a canvas by Vasarely, Van Grimde creates optical illusions through the changing nature of movement

Coproduced by Danse-Cité and Le Théâtre du Manège – Scène Nationale de Maubeuge (France) in collaboration with Dans in Kortrijk (Belgium).

This piece was presented in Maubeuge (France), Nijmegen and Arnhem (The Nederlands), Antwerp (Begium) and Montreal (Canada).


Choreographer	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Music	: David Ashley White
	: Tomas Svoboda
	: John Cage
Dancers	: Robert Meilleur
	: Maud Simoneau
	: Lyne Lamontagne
Lighting	: Caroline Ross
Length	: 30 minutes

REVIEWS

“The first moments of Maisons de poussière display Isabelle Van Grimde’s main artistic strengths. The sobriety of her aestheticism, the dynamism of her choreographic structure and the humanity of her movements confirm her maturity and originality. (...) ‘Maisons de poussière’ flows like a river in spring.”- Linda Boutin, Voir, Decembe 2nd, 1999.

“Maisons is a harmonious production in which elements mesh and an emotional bond develops between performer and spectator. (...) There’s a poignant quality to their clear gestures [the dancers]. Why they do what they do is irrelevant. What and how they do it is perfectly absorbing.” - Linde Howe-Beck, The Gazette, Montréal, November 26, 1999.

May All Your Storms Be Weathered ‹ 1998 ›

The work strikes to the core of modern communication, underlining the human difficulty of balancing our innermost selves against the forces of social attraction.

Originally created for Trias+, at the request of the Hoge-school Voor de Kunsten at Arnhem, in The Netherlands, and the contemporary musicians of the De Ereprijs Ensemble, Isabelle Van Grimde choreographed this quintet to an original score by the Polish composer Hanna Kulenty.

Inspired by her interpreters, who stand at the threshold of adulthood, Van Grimde has fashioned a meditation on human identity.

During the Trias+ tour this piece was presented in Arnhem, Apeldoorn and Amsterdam (The Netherlands); with Van Grimde Corps Secrets it was presented in Maubeuge (France), Arnhem and Nijmegen (The Netherlands), Antwerp (Belgium) and Montréal (Canada).

Commissioned by de Ereprijs and the Hogeschool Voor de Kunsten, Arnhem ( The Netherlands)

Chorégraphe:	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Musique:	: Elfen de Hanna Kulenty enregistrée par l’Ensemble de Ereprijs des Pays-Bas
Danseurs:	: Robert Meilleur
	: Maud Simoneau
	: Lyne Lamontagne
	: Fenne van Leth
	: Markus Theysen
Scénographie	: Adaptation de la scénographie originale de Christoph Ragg
Costumes	: René Coster
Éclairages	: Isabelle Van Grimde
Durée:	: 25 minutes

REVIEWS

“(...) Isabelle Van Grimde delivers a compelling demonstration of the art of creating on the stage, with minimalist costumes and a flow of movement pared down to its essentials, fascinating moments of high intensity. (...) One after another the dancers are attracted, then repulsed, in a fluid yet dynamic whirl in which the eye barely captures the details of gestuality, so continuous is the movement.” - Paul Vergeest, Arnhemse Courrant, Arnhem (The Netherlands) 1998.

“May All Your Storms Be Weathered successfully blends formal richness and pure emotion.” - Frédérique Doyon, La Presse, Montreal, November 27, 1999.

PREVIOUS CREATIONS

À l’échelle humaine { 1996 }
A coproduction of Danse-Cité in Montréal (Canada), this piece benefited from residencies at Klapstuk in Leuven and Charleroi/Danses (Belgium). Presented in Montréal (CANADA) and Arnhem (The Netherlands).
“People like Van Grimde push the limits of the body even further, as if to demonstrate that it possesses still unexplored frontiers.” - Manon Richard, La Presse.
Par la peau du cœur { 1994 }
A piece and film co-directed with Michel Desgagné, Par la peau du cœur transposes film techniques to the stage in the form of a film/dance presentation. Presented in Montréal (Canada), Liège and Antwerp (Belgium).
“ (...) thinking in terms of characters (...), constructing psychological sequences (...), working her characters in a dramatic context, but without a psychological sequence, more like a composer with a melodic one.” - Lynn Diamond, L’Agora de la Danse.

Au sommet de tes côtes { 1992 }
A coproduction of Danse-Cité in Montréal (Canada). Presented in Montréal and Ottawa (Canada).
“We watch the dancers perform as if we were overhearing a whispered confidence...” - Mathieu Albert, Le Devoir
Secrets Vestiges { 1991 }
A coproduction of Danse-Cité in Montréal (Canada). Presented in Ottawa, Halifax, St-John and Montréal (Canada).
“A gestural poetry in the intimate and disconcerting atmosphere of an undeciphered dream.” - Geneviève Dussault, Voir