TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY

Throughout her life and career, Trisha Brown, who left us in 2017, maintained close ties with France and its culture. The world première of one of her flagship pieces, Glacial Decoy, in 1979 was even held in Provence during the Sainte-Baume Fêtes Musicales. With this programme, the company that bears her name and perpetuates her repertoire continues to nourish this privileged relationship. On the one hand, it presents a selection of the American’s repertoire, reflecting her incessant spirit of innovation; while, on the other hand, it has commissioned a creation from the modern French generation embodied by Noé Soulier. Alongside For MG: the Movie (1991), a radical return to the source of artistic movement, and Working title (1985), evoking children’s races to music by Peter Zummo, we will discover choreography by the director of the Angers National Centre for Contemporary Dance. Though he also questions movement, his approach is more about inorganic transitions, the space between intention and gesture, effort and contraction. Beyond their specific vocabularies, the two artists nevertheless share a secret filiation: that inscribed in the body of the performers of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, who maintain and transmit the sensitive memory of their heritage, while opening themselves up to new writings.

Trisha Brown

Born in 1936 in the United States, she was one of the founding members of the Judson Dance Theater, home of the New York choreographic avant-garde in the early 1960s. She founded the Trisha Brown Company in 1970 and first developed her research outside of the traditional spaces of representation, then later within the stages of theatres or operas. Until her death in 2017, she premiered nearly 90 works and received the 1994 American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Noé Soulier

Born in Paris in 1987, Noé Soulier studied dance at the Paris CNSMD, at the National Ballet School of Canada and at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. In 2010, he was awarded first prize in the Danse Enlargie competition, organised by the Théâtre de la Ville and the Museum of Dance. His choreographic pieces explore movement in multiple devices, including the stage, the museum space, cinema and theoretical reflection. Since 2020, he has been director of the CNDC – Angers.