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 Centre he directs and its many activities. An exponent of the Nouvelle Danse, Brumachon approached choreography by chance. Enrolled by his father, a worker with a passion for painting, in the evening school of Fine Arts, he was introduced to dance by a classmate he met during the lessons. His artistic career 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 directed the National Choreographic Centre of Nantes since 1996, which began its activity in 1992. The daily objective of the artistic duo Brumachon-Lamarche focuses on the development of dance in general and in particular on the evolution of contemporary dance. The distribution of the shows produced occurs through careful capillary programming that touches theaters, but also the less conventional spaces of the regional, national and international territory with the aim of approaching a vast 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, proposing a complex exhibition of duets, solos and group performances, created over the last four years. Icare is a delicate monologue, created by Brumachon in 1996 for Benjamin Lamarche, which describes the metamorphosis of man who becomes a bird. The dancer is the one who more than anyone else manages to get close to his own "animality" and tries to "fly" and on stage he feels like a "demigod of myth". Brumachon writes: "I experienced this solo as 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 about a work of broader scope, an inner search to try to arrive at a new gesture, a new way of perceiving space. Anyone who wants to reduce this solo to a pure illustration will be wrong, because it is about something else entirely”. 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 from a fan and a long yellow feather held in her mouth lead her to the simulation of a bird in flight. The protagonist is therefore a “dreamer, who seeks a new direction for her fickle 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 who perform a playful and limping ballet, where everything lacks balance. Rimbaud’s poems inspired Brumachon for this choreography, which recalls the nonconformist personality and taste for the absurd of the French poet. Dandy is linked to the red and black universe, so contrasted by Baudelaire. Another duet, performed this time by Brumachon himself and Vèronique Redoux: together they represent a casual encounter, which leads to a dance with romantic and passionate colors. Embrasés closes the triptych and is a tribute to Pasolini’s verses. Brumachon and Lamarche, in a series of “danced… sequences”, explore Pasolini’s universe by offering a set of verses, a “love poem for dance, a complicit and shocking poem”. Una vita is a show from 1996, whose performance involves an open space where a bus is placed from which fragments of danced life emerge. It is a series of daily pictures with bizarre apparitions mixed with the tragic current reality of loneliness, racism and 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 experience 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! It is a creation from 1998 that refers to the historical events of the 16th century, one of the darkest periods for France due to the religious wars. Events that are connected by Brumachon, in a work full of pictorial flashes, with those of the 20th century to arrive at the conclusion that man is in eternal conflict with himself and is always on the verge of declaring war on his neighbor. And wars, in the name of so-called “faith” perhaps represent the height of liberation and intolerance. The French choreographer poses the disturbing question: “What right does a human being have to kill another in the name of a religion? …It is thanks to my curiosity as an artist that I was able to try to read between the lines”.
