Noé Soulier
Choreographer
April-October 2023
© Willfried Thiery - Cndc
Throughout my career, I have searched for ways of defining movement … They allow me to access a unique experience of self by using gesture to focus on different dimensions of the body: its geometry, tangibility, sensitivity, emotionality, and so forth.
As part of Albertine Dance Season 2023
Throughout my career, I have searched for ways of defining movement within the various choreographic vernaculars of the 19th and 20th centuries. I attempt to identify the principles that govern these dances, while using my analysis to develop a bodily vocabulary that both perpetuates and transforms them. These approaches to understanding movement are, in my view, crucial. They allow me to access a unique experience of self by using gesture to focus on different dimensions of the body: its geometry, tangibility, sensitivity, emotionality, and so forth. I am also interested in the practical and semantic aspects involved in bodily gesture. Beyond conventional, pre-defined motion, how can a gesture articulate a form of meaning and open expressivity? What performative dimensions might a practiced gesture take on when detached from its primary function? How can tools and items serve as traces or triggers of gestures? I explore each of these questions in a variety of settings, including on stage, in museum space, and through theoretical reflection.
In 2010, after completing his studies in dance at the Paris Conservatory (CNSMD), Canada’s National Ballet School, and the PARTS School for Contemporary Dance, and philosophy at La Sorbonne, Noé Soulier won the “Danse élargie” competition. In 2016, he published Actions, mouvements et gestes (Éditions du CND). In 2020, he took over as head of the CNDC - Angers.
His creations have been presented at the Paris Autumn Festival, Centre Pompidou, Théâtre National de Chaillot, Performa, Kaaitheater Brussels, Tanz im August/HAU Berlin, Tanzquartier Vienna, Teatro Municipal do Porto and the Roma Europa Festival.
He has also created performances for the Los Angeles Dance Project (LADP) dance company, Ballet du Rhin, Ballet de Lorraine, and Ballet de l’Opéra de Lyon. He is currently preparing a further two creations, for the Netherlands Dans Theater and the Trisha Brown Dance Company.
In New York City, I will meet the dancers of the Trisha Brown Dance Company to create a new collaborative performance, bringing my own methods up against the unique approach to movement shared by the group.
Trisha Brown’s artistic legacy lies not only in the pieces that she left us, but also in the intimacy offered by the bodies of the performers who have helped create this decades-long repertoire of work. Beyond mere created works, the history of dance is—arguably, above all else—written in the ways in which we rehearse, warm up, and move. It is the unique bodily relationships invented together by dancers and choreographers. In many respects, Trisha and I use different choreographic languages. Whereas she exposed with extraordinary clarity and fluidity the fundamental forces acting on the body, I explore inorganic transitions and gaps between intention and gesture; and between effort and tension. Despite these apparent contrasts, my approach to movement bears the marks of Trisha’s methods. Even in the aspects that set it apart, my dance forms a dialog with the remarkable choreographic renaissance that she helped bring about.
This project will bring me to New York City, where an incredible choreographic innovation gave rise to infinite new ways of conceiving of body, movement, and performance in the 1960s and 1970s. I will meet specifically with the dancers of the Trisha Brown Company, who continue to uphold her legacy by injecting it into their craft. As I practice dance in New York City and exchange with the Company’s many performers, I will immerse myself in this context that has some profound changes in our approach to choreography.
In partnership with
Each season, the Scène nationale offers theater, dance, music, circus and young audience shows. The programming, open to contemporary creation, mixes internationally renowned artists and emerging companies, contemporary texts and new looks at the repertoire.
TBDC actively promotes the performance of Trisha’s choreography by companies around the globe. The Professional Licensing program makes selected works from Trisha Brown’s 40 years of repertory available to professional companies worldwide.