Coproduction: Centre chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandiewith the assistance of the Ministry of Culture and Communication – Centre National des Arts plastiques and of the Mairie de Paris / Department of art in the citywith the support of tsf camera and tsf lumière

Based on the performance herses (une lente introduction) by Boris Charmatz

Explanatory note Ten years after he conceived the choreography herses (une lente introduction), Boris Charmatz comes back to this major creation through a silent film. Une lente introduction proposes to search the dance and the flesh of choreography, two elements often evacuated from the discourse surrounding the presentation of that work. The images were shot at the Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre, in high res format, in 2005, shortly before the last public performance by the team that had interpreted the play during seven years: Vincent Dupont, Myriam Lebreton, Sylvain Prunenec, Julia Cima and Boris Charmatz. Since then, a revival of herses has been performed in Oslo, Berlin, Vienne and Paris. herses (une lente introduction) would be, first of all, a play of getting in touch; in fact, the direct, ironic or reactive confrontation with a few utopias:

1 the natural utopia, that of the body liberated and let free in green territory, snatched by the forces one says are essential, trees and flowers then the utopia of the couple, the builing of one by the other (and the perenniality of desire), irritating and archetypical choreographic figure finally the communitarian utopia, the body shared or combined, the impossible or unavowable contacts. Those three “utopias of union”, and some of their consequences (the vanishing of the individual for the benefit of nature, union, or the communitarian ideal; the dream of an absolute and blinding encounter, the spirit of team, escapade, merging!) could give birth to a play for two couples of dancers. It would imply contrasted reactions, from sarcasm to fascination, and would come as close as possible to dangerous reefs: the reef of parody, the one of writing per se, the one of pornography.

Magma is an extract from Une lente introduction presented as an installation. Showed on a loop, it is relieved from the dramturgical construction of Une lente introduction and lets appear its acme: a roll of entangled bodies.

Silent film

Camera and editing: Aldo Lee

Director of photography: Madjid Hakimi

Ground: Gilles Touyard

Stage management: Gilles Gentner

Set management: Alexandre Xenakis

Production direction: Angèle le Grand and Sandra Neuveut

Postproduction executive: Laura Beurdeley

Technical means: Tsf camera and Tsf lumière

Conformation and grading: Sylicone

Kinescoping: Laboratoires éclair

Thanks to: Yves Godin, who did the lighting of the original play and Pascale Cassagnau, Helmut Lachenmann, Soizic Maïni, Frederic Peyrat, Hervé Robbe, Carole Rambaud, Rodolphe Devaure and the team of the Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie, Nathalie Viot, as well as Danys Bruyère and Christophe Hustache-Marmon, Youssef el Moudhakir, Matthieu Straub, Françoise Plouviet and the tsf team.

Une lente introduction was shot at the Centre Chorégraphique National du Havre Haute-Normandie (Direction Hervé Robbe) in 2007.