For the first time, the audience of Oriente Occidente has the opportunity to appreciate Claude Brumachon through a series of different performances, a sort of overview of the French Choreographic Center he directs and its various activities. A representative of the Nouvelle Danse, Brumachon approached choreography by chance. Enrolled by his father, a worker passionate about painting, in the evening school of Fine Arts, he was introduced to dance by a classmate he met during the lessons. His artistic journey saw him alongside contemporary personalities such as Daniel Larrieu, Philippe Decouflé, Karine Saporta, and Mideyki Yano. In 1984, he founded his own group of dancers together with his partner Benjamin Lamarche, with whom he has been directing the National Choreographic Center of Nantes since 1996, which started its activities in 1992. The daily goal of the artistic duo Brumachon-Lamarche focuses on the development of dance in general and particularly on the evolution of contemporary dance. The dissemination of the produced shows occurs through a careful capillary programming that touches theaters as well as less conventional spaces in the regional, national, and international territory, with the aim of reaching a wide audience. Other important Choreographic Centers, such as Le Ballet du Rhin, Le Ballet de Marseille, and Le Ballet du Nord, commission creations from him.
In Rovereto, Brumachon presents his Company and his Center, offering a complex exhibition of duets, solos, and group performances created in the last four years.
Icare is a delicate monologue, created by Brumachon in 1996 for Benjamin Lamarche, which describes the metamorphosis of a man who becomes a bird. The dancer is the one who most closely approaches his own "animality" and tries to "fly," feeling on stage like a "demigod of myth." Brumachon writes: "I lived this solo like a breath. I felt a breath, perhaps the breath of a man in flight, who frees himself by dancing. Icare is not the image of an impossibility, but much more. It is not about the bird-man, but a broader work, an inner search to try to reach a new gesture, a new way of perceiving space. Those who want to reduce this solo to a pure illustration will be wrong because it is something else."
La femme qui voulait parler avec le vent is another solo from last year. This time the performer is a woman, Claire Richard, who is surrounded by a series of objects that allow her to "fly" with her imagination: the air of a fan and a long yellow feather held in her mouth lead her to simulate a bird in flight. The protagonist is thus a "dreamer, seeking a new direction for her volatile spirit in the limbo of an imaginary dream."
Poèmes dansés is a 1999 creation composed of three duets in homage to the poetry, works, and strong personalities of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Pasolini. La fracture de l'âme is performed by Benjamin Lamarche and Isabelle Terruel, who represent two disjointed, candid, and clumsy dancers performing a playful and limping ballet where everything lacks balance. Rimbaud's poems inspired Brumachon for this choreography, reminiscent of the non-conformist personality and taste for the absurd of the French poet. Dandy reconnects to Baudelaire's red and black universe, so contrasting. Another duet, this time performed by Brumachon himself and Véronique Redoux: together they represent a chance meeting, leading to a dance of romantic and passionate colors. Embrasés closes the triptych and is an homage to Pasolini's verses. Brumachon and Lamarche, in a series of "danced sequences," explore Pasolini's universe offering a collection of verses, a "love poem for dance, a complicit and shocking poem."
Una vita is a 1996 show, whose representation takes place in an open space where a bus is placed from which fragments of danced life emerge. It is a series of everyday scenes with bizarre appearances mixed with the current tragic reality of loneliness, racism, and the general paranoia typical of cities. As if by magic, Andersen's little mermaid, the witch from The Wizard of Oz, an elf, and the wolf come to life. "A free creation," explains Brumachon, "for spectators free to feel a sudden and subtle emotion. ... Una Vita is a human gaze on other human gazes. My gaze is like a sponge, a choreographic attempt that explores fragments of human societies, of different races and cultures."
Humains dites-vous! is a 1998 creation that refers to the historical events of the 16th century, one of the darkest eras for France due to the religious wars. Events that Brumachon relates, in a work imbued with pictorial flashes, to those of the 20th century to conclude that man is in eternal conflict with himself and is always on the verge of declaring war on others. And wars, in the name of the so-called "faith," perhaps represent the pinnacle of liberation and intolerance. The French choreographer poses the disturbing question: "What right does a human being have to kill a fellow human being in the name of religion? ... It is thanks to my curiosity as an artist that I have been able to attempt to read between the lines."
