Faune(s)

Olivier Dubois is an atypical dancer. That can be seen on his body in a milieu that is often standardized: a round body, with curves, that he totally assumes. But a body that moves a great deal, gracefully and supplely. “I started dance late,” he says. “I felt that nothing could have been more obvious than trying it. I wanted to situate myself opposite something that I would never succeed in completely achieving. It was my challenge and my way of meeting it consisting in seeing everything, reading everything, learning everything, swallowing dance. I had this late relationship with dance and an immediate one with its past and its present.” Twelve years later, in June 2007, Olivier Dubois was awarded the special prize of the Syndicat de la Critique for his career as an interpreter and choreographer. He started with Laura Simi and Damiano Foa, then worked as a dancer with Andy Degroat, Elio Gervasi, Jan Fabre, Karine Saporta, Angelin Preljocaj, Charles Cré-Ange, Dominique Boivin, Marie Pessemier, Nasser Martin-Gousseand and Sasha Waltz. Relatively quickly, he also proposed his own choreographies: Under Cover, a solo he danced in 1999, then a duet with Christine Corday, Féroces (Ferocious), and En Sourdine (On the sly) and Peter Pan for a young audience. For the Festival d'Avignon, Olivier Dubois presented Pour tout l'or du monde (For All the Gold in the World) in the Sujets à Vif program in 2006 and was present as a dancer in MC 14/22 (This Is My Body) by Angelin Preljocaj in 2001 and Je suis sang (I Am Blood) and L'Histoire des larmes (The History of Tears) by Jan Fabre in 2005.

Faune(s) is a reappropriation of the modern dance heritage: a project that aims at being both archaeological and contemporary, historic and almost iconoclastic. Before Bakst's large canvas, as it was arranged in 1912 on the stage of the Théâtre du Châtelet for the premiere, the idea was to revive L'Après-midi d'un faune (Afternoon of a Faun) choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes with respect, rigor and modesty, under the direction of the choreographer Dominique Brun, while bringing this story up to the present. To the present of “the interpretation”, since Olivier Dubois, surrounded by nymphs, takes on the role danced by Nijinsky, the icon of the art of the stage that he appropriates. To the present of the “reinterpretation” as well, because he has turned over to several artists the task of freely revisiting this fetish heritage, in the form of solos: the director and scenographer Sophie Perez who works with the musician Xavier Boussiron, the film-maker Christophe Honoré, and Olivier Dubois himself. The latter dances during the entire show, putting the question of the interpreter at the heart of the project: where are his combat and his contribution? In measuring up to the faun, to its myth, to the performance par excellence, to the history of an entire art? In the idea of simply making possible contemporary variations, opening this history up to today's theatre? Or in the resistance to these very variations, when a body is imposed by itself and conceals any necessary betrayals. “Crossing, composing and recomposing the work. Submitting yourself to it, bending to it and nevertheless perverting to allow the work to exist…”, Olivier Dubois writes about his desire to do battle with the faun. In other words, incarnating it to excess, and in this very excess, to disappear.

idée originale et interprétation: Olivier Dubois
avec: Olivier Dubois, Caroline Baudoin, Laura Biasse, Marie-Laure Caradec, Sophy Gérard, Claire Laureau, Enora Rivière, Julie Salgues
lumières: Patrick Riou
création sonore: Sébastien Roux
production: Béatrice Horn

production: COD
coproduction: Festival d'Avignon, MC2 Grenoble, Internationales Tanzfest Berlin –Tanz im August, Maison de la Culture d'Amiens –Centre de création et de production, Théâtre des Salins –Scène nationale de Martigues, Les Spectacles Vivants –Centre Georges Pompidou, Centre national de la Danse –Pantin, Centre chorégraphique national de Roubaix Nord-Pasde-Calais Compagnie Carolyn Carlson, La rose des vents -Scène nationale de Lille Métropole à Villeneuve d'Ascq, Les Films d'ici-Agathe Berman
avec le soutien: du Centre chorégraphique national de Grenoble/Jean-Claude Gallotta dans le cadre de l'accueil studio 2008, du Ballet de Biarritz/Thierry Malandain dans le cadre de l'accueil studio 2008, de la DRAC d'Île-de-France – ministère de la Culture et de la communication et de la Fondation Beaumarchais
avec le soutien: de l'École d'Art d'Avignon
Le Festival d'Avignon reçoit le soutien de l'Adami pour la production