bartleby

Didier Théron : “What provokes my enthusiasm in the figure of Bartleby is his non-passionate, depressed and tough character, incarnated in Melville’s magic formula “I would prefer not to”, which modifies our outlook and obtains our sympathy. The impetus for this work - a work without impulse in movement as opposed to my other works - was Bartleby’s quiet strength, the felt-like and polite intensity of his few acts, which disconcert and break down human games in a humoristic and healthy process.
Bartleby, depressed but brave, foretells something, but what? Despite the victories of imposture, I want to trust with him in the final triumph of innocence and the will to happiness.
Accompanied by Gerome Nox (sound), Donald Becker (stage set), and Alain Paradis (lights), I work on the subject of depression, pressure and resistance with the body. I question the mystery and enigma of these words, mind and body concentrated, with dance as an essential material without mask or detour. This solo is like a short story. The last words in the story are “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” like a cry or a call. Is Bartleby necessary for mankind? Certainly courage, radicalism, liberty and humour are!


Bartleby : A statement
(Interview for Montpellier International Dance Festival 2006)

Your upcoming dance piece, bartleby, a solo created for the Montpellier Dance Festival, is the title of a short story by Herman Melville, the name of an anonymous character who would “prefer not to». Does this bear any relation to other literary works, such as those of Gogol and particularly the works of Dostoyevsky, which you have already approached? Is there a social and political inspiration in this for you?
“Bartleby” will be created at the Gekken Theatre in Kyoto on May 12th 2006. My company is producing this piece, Gerome Nox will compose the music, Donald Becker is creating the stage set, Alain Paradis the lights and Michèle Murray is choreographic counsellor. My first solo, “Self-portrait Raskolnikov”, was inspired by the character Raskolnikov in the novel “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Bartleby is related to Raskolnikov on more than one level. As in “Self-portrait Raskolnikov”, it is the title of a new solo a few years later. It is also the main character of a major literary work. Dostoyevsky puts the emphasis on a tormented Raskolnikov who contradicts himself, confronting society surrounding him, externalizing his violence through murder. An anonymous and universal individual, Bartleby is par excellence the figure of resistance, that is, of an organized, critical and creative mind. In my opinion, Bartleby is the opposite of Raskolnikov, an anti- Raskolnikov or maybe a reversed Raskolnikov. But, like Raskolnikov, Bartleby foretells a new way of taking a stand, of moving, of existing and therefore of thinking.
Bartleby doesn’t come to me by chance! In 2005, I created “Résider Résister Résonner / Nous Autres”, a choreographic installation in a library – more words and stories - for ten dancers, which premiered in La Paillade Montpellier. Bartleby is in keeping with this philosophy of resistance. He is the stage transposition of this research which has come to maturity.
In my artistic route, the solo has always been a statement. “Self-portrait Raskolnikov” had paved the way to a new attitude and new ways of moving, which brought about a choreographic renewal. This piece was followed by other important works. I hope that “bartleby” will be in keeping with this work process.

My creative process has been punctuated with texts by Kafka, Beckett, Dostoyevsky and now Melville. What they have in common is the power of their style, their innovative writing, their observation of human condition and the political vision which ensues from it. The characters originate from their political and social time. In working with these literary texts, I find support in outstanding writing and fundamental ideas of our civilisation: the principals of the French Revolution, of human rights, of liberty, equality and fraternity. These ideas are incarnated by Bartleby (1853), this post-revolutionary of the American Revolution, and Raskolnikov (1866), pre-Russian revolutionary of the Russian Revolution. In Montpellier, France where I live, I feel the need to create accordingly, to bring these ideas to life through dance and the body, which in my opinion are the means of contemporary artistic expression par excellence.

What would you “prefer not to”?
Bartleby’s statement is magical. It changes the world and our behaviour. I would prefer not to do what I have already done; the way I have already done it. I will take a direction I had not seen before. This statement leads up to resistance, to creation, humour, the unknown and the future. It means following one’s own necessity, respecting others and oneself. Resistance is a creative thinking process. Resistance is constructed and needs a strategy. Resistance has brought me to where I am today.

This short story combines gravity and absurd. Are you familiar with this form of expression?
Yes, combining gravity and absurd is a fundamental element of my choreography. In fact, I try to see the world differently because I am tired of seeing it the way it is presented to us, or imposed upon us. That is my form of resistance!

It isn’t the first time you are doing solo work. Is it important for you to work in this manner?
The solo is a necessary and fundamental statement, in relation to company work. Certain stages must be gone through alone in order to work with the company afterwards. Dance is a physical experience which one “tests” on oneself first and foremost. (This is also something I have learned from masters of dance.) In a solo, I am my own mental and physical experimental field.

In this piece, you work with a painter and stage decorator, Donald Becker. Are drawings, graphics, and this way of refining a trait to make things clear not also a way of seeing the world?
To me, drawing, writing and choreography are closely related, in the sense that these three art forms partake in “visual thought”. They deal with the relation of image and thought process.
In my previous creation “En Forme”, I worked with Kafka’s drawings, analysing the graphics, the line, the impulse, and his way of seeing the world. I am going through a similar experience with “bartleby”, because in the word choreographic, I hear “graphic”. I work on form and images. This in turn produces ideas and prompts the imagination of the person watching. (In Greek, idea stems from image)
In “bartleby”, there will also be a more general work on the stage set with Donald Becker who is painter and stage decorator. I would like to work on setting and surface, which will position the dance and the character.

You were invited to work in Japan many times. When did you start relating to this country? How has it influenced the way you work?
In my artistic career, my relation with Japan began very early and has grown ever since. Today it is a very strong relationship.
1993 : For the first time I was invited to perform in Japan at the Mitsui Festival in Tokyo and Mito along with four other French choreographers: Jean Claude Gallotta, Nathalie Pernette, Michel Kélémenis, and Christian Bourigault. I presented “Ironworks”, a piece which had been created at the Montpellier Dance Festival in 1991, in what later became the Theatre Jean Vilar. Since then, my company has regularly been invited to Japan. In my opinion, Japan represents acknowledgement from artists and dancers who studied there with me, as well as theatre directors and curators whom I meet regularly. With the support of the AFAA the company has represented France in Japan during important events and festivals.

The reception is an acknowledgement of my work by a country which has a very big tradition of dance and movement. The Japanese theatre is a theatre of the body combined with great mind control, offering forms which question me more than others, such as the Noh theatre, which is an abstract theatre form; one could also say an abstract dance in which concentration and movement interact constantly.
I have a particularly strong relationship with Tadashi Suzuki, an internationally renowned Japanese theatre director who has invited us regularly these last five years. We share the same concerns, such as the economy of means, which gives the body and physical energy a central position. (It is in fact the essence of Japanese theatre), or the development of precise, sophisticated, sober and witty forms.

Your career, your company. Your company exists since 1988 in Montpellier. How did you discover dance?
I was born in Béziers in 1956. I work in Montpellier in the Espace Bernard Glandier.
I did not discover dance, rather, I come from a family of dancers of a particular kind.... the Buffatière dance, an extraordinary ritual which is still practised in certain villages of the Aveyron and the Tarn. I come from the South. If one takes recent discoveries concerning cellular memory into account, one could say that I was a dancer before I was born! My grandfather and father were talented drawers. From them, I inherit the attraction and love for anything graphic. As for my following career, I did not study in a particular school, but studied dance through various modern and contemporary techniques in New York, Lyon, Paris, Kyoto and Tokyo, discovering the world at the same time. I studied with masters : Merce Cunningham, Dominique Bagouet, and Trisha Brown. I also studied Zen in Japanese temples where one learns a lot about movement while practising immobility.

Which were the decisive years during your career? Were there any essential encounters?
The masters I have already spoken of, but also Daniel Buren in Japan, Noritoshi Hirakawa, an artist in New York, Michèle Murray, choreographer in Montpellier and Harada Tangen, Zen master in Obama, Japan. With these people I believe I learned perseverance, integrity, patience, hope, desire and watchfulness.

Since 2003, you are in official residence in the Espace Bernard Glandier, in a very densely populated area called La Paillade, Montpellier. Have you and your company been working in this part of town for a long time? Is working in a working-class environment important for you?
Part of my artistic experience takes place in this neighbourhood, where my team and I have created a centre, the Espace Bernard Glandier, a meeting and exchange space where public and artists with a variety of interests can mix. The space is dedicated to the circulation of ideas and projects. Here, we discuss and create contemporary art, with, as neighbours, the Maison Pour Tous, an retirement home, the Restos du Coeur and the Theatre Jean Vilar. We experiment things here. Art has its place in the heart of this neighbourhood.
We have given this centre an international dimension, linking it not only to Montpellier and Paris, but also to Glasgow, Berlin, Kyoto, and Tokyo and so on. This space is the product of a remarkable and unique experiment which we have developed over the space of ten years. We started out with a simple studio space in the Maison Pour Tous and very limited financial means as well as the support of a few city representatives convinced by the determination and the validity of our project. Others have joined in their support since then.
The circumstances of my career have resulted in my being in Montpellier. I have also lived in a working class environment and my friends at school were Spanish and Italian.
Like any experience, my experience with the company here changes my outlook on the world and consequently what we express. In this sense, I feel close to the French theatre companies of the “Red Belt” in the Paris of the 60’s and 70’s. During the following six months, we will be going to Glasgow, Kyoto, Tokyo, Edinburgh, Berlin and Philadelphia.

The Espace Bernard Glandier was inaugurated in 2004. How do you share this space? Are there any associated artists?
The Espace Bernard Glandier was officially inaugurated by André Vesinhet, President of the Hérault County Council on February 5, 2004. We organize creative work residencies for artists we meet or who come and meet us. But a real residence necessitates financial means and that’s what we are aiming at now.
There are Associated Artists who founded the project with me : Michèle Murray and Maya Brosch. We also invite artists for a season (for example Anne Lopez in 2003, Rosalind Crisp in 2004-05, Rita Quaglia and Luis Ayet in 2005) as well as young artists from Montpellier and the district who experiment their first work here. In 2006 and 2007 we will organize performance programmes taking place at 7 pm in this space for 80 spectators. At the same time, we organize a series of workshops with experienced teachers coming from important companies such as Trisha Brown or Wim Vandekeybus. These workshops are very popular with the dancers of the district. For example, Keith Thompson, former dancer and assistant with Trisha Brown, gave a workshop in 2005. I am inviting him again in 2007 and we will also be working together on a duet called “Theron and Thompson”. The adventure goes on… with perseverance, integrity, patience, hope, desire and watchfulness: dance is a fight.