parades & changes, replays

Before making history in New York, dancers like Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer studied in California under Anna Halprin, now 88 years old. Here, in the fifties, they sought new ways of creating choreographic works, thereby sowing the seeds for a radical innovation which continues to influence dancers even today: physical tasks as a basis for improvisation, the use of commonplace everyday movements, breaking open the stage to form a larger space and collaborating with artists in other disciplines. In the meantime, partly due to the cancer she suffered, Halprin’s work has evolved towards therapeutic dance workshops and performances about nature, old age, sickness and death.

Parades and Changes (1965) is Halprin’s first ‘collective creation’ and her most famous production. However, because of its nude scenes it was banned in the United States for twenty years. The performance has an open structure surrounded by a complex network of scores. The dancers use these scores, their own box of building blocks from which they select instructions to carry out as they perform several parades: the parade of ritual dressing and undressing, the parade of dialogues and the parade of a paper soundscape. Parades and Changes meticulously analyses the process of the performance, the surroundings, action and interaction and the performer.

Now, a group of strong performers, including the Portuguese Vera Mantero, whose work has previously been shown at the Kaaitheater, is for the first time recreating all the scores of this ‘ceremony of trust’. parades & changes, replays examines the power of the original and tests the utopian idea of collectiveness against today’s reality.

WORKSHOP & FILMS ON ANNA HALPRIN AT THE RAFFINERIE

On the occasion of the performances of parades & changes, replays Charleroi/Danses presents a programme of workshops and films in which the figure and work of Anna Halprin play a central role. All the activities will take place in the Raffinerie, Manchesterstraat 21, 1080 Brussels, tel. 071 20 56 40, www.charleroi-danses.be.

1. Workshop by Anne Collod, Vera Mantero & Mathias Poisson

29/09, 30/09, 2/10/2008 – 10:30-17:30
1/10/2008 – 10:00-17:30

Registration required: send an e-mail with CV to Régis Rémigy, regis@charleroi-danses.be

The dancers in parades & changes, replays are giving a workshop in which they develop phrases and sections of the performance. They also examine the present-day significance of the ideas Anna Halprin experimented with in her legendary summer workshops in the 50s.

2. Film: My lunch with Anna - Alain Buffard (2005)

2/10/2008 – 18:00 | film (52 min.) + meeting with Alain Buffard

The French choreographer Alain Buffard portrays Anna Halprin and has an imaginary conversation/dialogue with her. He also dances in parades & changes, replays.

3. Film: Out of boundaries - Jacqueline Caux  (2004)

3/10/2008 – 18:00 | film (53 min.) + meeting with Jacqueline Caux

Anna Halprin introduced some fundamental disruptions into modern dance. The film shows us this by way of a filmed interview with Halprin, pictures of rehearsals and performances, rare archive films and so on.

4. Re-enacting the Dance

3/10/2008 – 13:00-17:30

Informal meeting between scholars, dancers and choreographers.

This programme is organised by Charleroi/Danses, Kaaitheater & 'Performance Studies and Film' (Ghent University).