Ascension

From Aatt enen tionon, original choreography by Boris Charmatz 

The dance film Ascension is a cinematographic construction by a choreographer, Alain Michard, based on a work of choreography, Aatt enen tionon, by another choreographer—Boris Charmatz. The structure of the film is developed based on different periods of shooting in Belfort, Grenoble, and Montpellier, allowing us to see the vertical installation of the choreographic project both indoors and outdoors. For the opening sequences of the film, Alain Michard has also preserved the music of PJ Harvey, played as the audience was being seated, and turned off as the performance was about to start in order to make room for the sounds of bodies. Alain Michard further proposes vocal incursions—spoken deconstructions of the title, scattered throughout the film sequences—along with shots from angles normally inaccessible to the audience. The montage of the film is characterized by a distinct rhythm which offers a singular vision of this “triple solo”.

(extract from Numéridanse)

“I’ve traveled with naked butts stacked three high. From one place to another: Belfort in January, Grenoble in July, Montpellier in June. I filmed on the sly, in the raw, in between. For four hands. Night and day, they never had any time, and light would change often, and hair had grown out. The Beaulieu camera makes sounds like a machine gun, and the film sometimes shrivels up inside. Thanks, Kodak! But I really felt like filming, filming without knowing how or where I’d go, but filming this Aatt enen tionon in response to my astonishment. To test my own dancer-spectator’s eye, in order to show in return to those who dance, so difficult to watch other than by staring straight at their crotch. To see the dance where there has only been question of naked butts, and a metaphor for social housing where the fear of empty discourse threatened to obscure the wholeness of the dance.”

Alain Michard

Photography: Alain Michard - Didier Silhol

Editing: Franck Arblade

With the voices of: François Lepage - Annabelle Pulcini