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A Tale of Two Countries

by Ginger Danto
Almost .i century ago. the American dancer Loie Fuller look I'arls by storm with her debut ai the Folies-Bergeres. the City of Lights celebrated cabaret lor plumed showgirls and extravagant entertainment A one-time chorus girl from Chicago. Fuller did not so much entertain as entrance, appearing in a shroud of veils and electric shadows that inspired her French nickname. "La lx*ie. Indeed. Fuller s sensual style eclipsed existing dance categories of classical and cabaret, and her historic performance unwittingly introduced audiences to a new law of on-stage movement.
Whether settling permanently or passing through to perform, these innovators invariably influenced the development of French modern dance. Key figures further reciprocated France's investment. In 1978. Alwin Nikolais was named director of the first Centre National de Danse Contemporaine in Angers, where he was succeeded by Viola Farber. Carolyn Carlson, a formci member of Nlkolais's company. established residency in 1968 in Paris, where the opera appointed her to head a foreign dance ensemble. Now well into a brilliant expatriate career. Carlson is considered one of her adopted country's own.
With these models, the idea that lyricism was accountable to classicism began collapsing in France, where dancers were suddenly free to pursue their own ideas. This process began formally in the 1960s. as the French dance world — Its audience as well as its actors — acknowledged modernism at the hands of expatriate exponents. By the 1980s. a core of French choreographers had claimed autonomy in the art form, emerging onto the dance door with a native iconography that occasional!) made reference to. but never replicated, Aiufif 1^^.
• Among them. Jean-Claude Gallolla paid homage.-to < unnmgh.mi with hi- 1'18 1 dance. "Ulysses. but Gallon.is gestures were al-ready more raw and visceral than the calculated symmetry of Cunningham s, and his work, like the autodidactic aesthetic of Francois Verret or Sidonie Rochon, meant that French dance had crossed a symbolic bridge — no longer simply influenced
b. American dance, the I rench were fully reinler • preting It. The gestation ol French modern dance wa-eomplete. and its birth initiated a boom that has not abated to this day, thanks to an Increasingly enthusiastic audience willing to travel to the many places throughout
Fram e where dance is hap-peplng.
,, ,1/^eed a brief decade ago. such French cities as Montpellier. La Rochelle or Grenoble were known more for their scenery or culinary specialties than for specific cultural offerings. The arts had historically been anchored in Paris, with its highly social performance season, even (hrough the rampart city of Avignon lured music and dance fans to its summer festival and Orange lent Us ancient amphithe-
liters to grand-scale opera. Today, President Mitt errand,'s plan to decen-11 alize culture from the capital has come to fruition, and France's system of government-sponsored arts has spawned dance centers and residencies for choreographers throughout the coun-try.
The resulting eclecticism of French modern dance is as diverse as the country's geography. from the cloudy plains of Normandy, where Karine Saporta directs the NaUonal Choreography Center of Caen, to the Mediterranean cityscape of Marseille, a sprawling port where native Michel Kelemenis brought his company. Plaisir d'Offrir. Yet there is more than geographical distance between Saporta’s dramatic storytelling and Kelemenis’s exuberant expression of dance as an elaborate game verging sometimes on vaudeville. Ultimately, what links these compatriots to the group of leading French choreographers is a. sense of exploration.
The overall pattern of French modern dance today is a cross-hatching of myriad paths, from that of abstract avant-garde led by Odile Duboc and Daniel Larrieu to the sensually ritualistic venue of Claude Brumachon or Angelin Preljoeaj. the son of Albanian refugees who escaped to France.
In deference to France's cultural legacy, many native or resident foreign choreographers variously incorporate theater and its inventory of expression in dialogue, slapstick. even derision. Josef Nadj. who arrived in France in 1980 and is now associated Mfith the Choregraphy Center. iu.Orleans.,.brings lo his work rrfartial arts, mime and art history from his native Hungary. Theater of the absurd, however, may best qualify Mathilde Monnier's highly inventive choreography. Still others borrow from different legacies: Catherine Diverres draws inspiration from the spectral Japanese dance genre known as Buto: Dominique Bagouet all but redefines baroque: music and mysticism are the signature
ingredients in works by Marcia Barcellos and Karl Biscuit of the Compagnie Castafiore; and Regine Choplnot. 1991 winner of the Grand Prix international de la Danse, has used the contexts of fashion, chess and boxing matches in pieces echoing the real in recreated
worlds.
Experimentation is not just the purview of contemporary companies, however. The long-established Lyon Opera Ballet has built a unique repertory around the culting-edge work of young international — including American — choreographers, thus helping to bring the French-American dance link full circle. Moreover, the company's 1985 production of Prokofiev's "Cinderella" as a futuristic fairy tale further proved that old and new
could work together.
But such ground-breaking events in dance have become a tradition in Lyon, which early on claimed its current status as France's ’’City of Dance.” With the establishment of France's first Maison de la Danse and subsequent launch of a dance biennial,' the ancient silk-making center has become the nation's leading site for attracting known and newly emerging artists. In 1990, the biennial dedicated its season to "A Century of American Dance." and featured 60 US companies as well as selected French troupes whose works for the occasion variously addressed this theme.
In March, the Kennedy Center will reciprocate Lyon's gesture with a largescale dance festival. Until now. US dance audiences have seen but piecemeal evidence of the French dance boom via select company tours. The Kennedy Center’s timely showcase promises to illustrate, through a panorama of classical and contemporary troupes, the vibrant state of French «dance today.
Appropriately anchoring the festival is the Paris Opera Ballet, representing a 260-year-old tradition of French classical dance. France may have been a latecomer to contemporary dance, but its claim to classicism dates back to the time of King Louis XIV. who elevated dance from entertainment to ■art form and set up schools for training the newly anointed artistes. An 18th-century ballet master at the Ecole de Danse de I'Opera liberated the troupe from the opera, allowing dancers alone lo create dramatic narrative. There was no want of drama in such early triumphs as "La Fille Mal Gardee"' (1786), nor room for more romance in "La Sylphide" (1832) or "Giselle" (1841). In time the world's top dance talent gravitated toward the company, from the first ballerina on point (Marie Taglioni) to legendary choreographers from Balanchine to Bejart.
In different ways, all these artists attest to a spirit of reciprocity still fervent after nearly a century. As such, the Kennedy Center festival chronicles not |nsl France's coining ol age in an art form, bul ihe conlinnation of a tale of iw<> countries committed, i<> dame
Coun< si/: France .Magazine