COMPAGNIE MOUVIMENTO

Watching music and listening to dance: such is the proposal of this audacious piece, selected at the Danse Élargie competition in 2020, organised in partnership with the Hermès Foundation by the Paris Théâtre de la Ville. Based around the core concept of composition, Wendy Cornu transforms the musical score into the primary medium of her choreography. Schubert and Bach, along with the trumpet of jazzman Ibrahim Maalouf, the electro sounds of Son.Sine or the hypnotic vocal loops of Julianna Barwick, become the matrix and structure of these eight dancers’ ‘Volutes’. In addition to musical proposals, the dancers are also given vocal directions which, according to a game of chance evoking the work of Merce Cunningham, they will choose whether or not to follow. Like a living painting or a work in progress, Volutes therefore offers a construction as complex as it is infinitely natural, in which bodies themselves become instruments. Each of these snapshots reconfigures the set along the way, unleashing a spiral of sensations and a wind of freedom to carry the audience away. In perfect equilibrium, this singular musical and chorographical object manages to marry synchronicity and listening, collective actions and individual escapes. Unusual and captivating.

Mouvimento Company – Wendy Cornu

Trained at the CNDC Angers (National Contemporary Dance Centre), Wendy Cornu danced for several companies between 2002 and 2012, including those of Emanuel Gat and Georges Appaix. In 2010, she debuted her first solo, 3Times, before going on to found the Mouvimento company with Julie Amelle, in which both would offer up four pieces, from Ellipses to Effacée(s). In 2017–2018, Wendy Cornu served as artist in residence at the Royaumont Foundation for the Prototype V course, initiating the process of reflection which would ultimately lead to Volutes during this residency.