Regine Chopinot

Régine Chopinot (* 1952 in Fort-de-l'Eau , Algeria ) is a French dancer and choreographer. She has influenced the development of contemporary dance from France since the late 1970s. Her multifaceted work is both successful and controversial at the same time. In addition, Chopinot is best known in France for her critical analysis of contemporary cultural-political issues.

Life

With the Compagnie du Grèbe, Chopinot founded her own company in Lyon in 1978 . Since then she has created more than 50 choreographies, mostly in collaboration with visual artists such as Andy Goldsworthy , Jean Le Gac and Jean Michel Bruyère, as well as musicians such as Tôn-Thât Thiêt or Bernard Lubat .

In 1981 Chopinot won second prize at the Concours International de Chorégraphie de Bagnolet ( Département Seine-Saint-Denis ) with her piece Halley's Comet . At the age of 34 she took over the management of the “Center Chorégraphique National de La Rochelle ”, one of the largest Center Chorégraphique National in France. She has been running the facility to this day, since 1993 under the name “Ballet Atlantique-Régine Chopinot” (BARC). In 2008 she left the BARC by mutual agreement with her sponsors.

As part of her collaboration with Jean-Paul Gaultier , who created the costumes for her pieces between 1983 and 1993, Chopinot made a name for herself with humorous, colorful and aesthetically provocative pieces.

In the 1990s she began to act against the emerging institutionalization and commercialization of contemporary dance with her work . She experiments with new forms of expression and topics that run counter to current trends. The essence of the human being, natural elements and rhythms and the examination of body practices and teachings shape her choreographic works from this time.

With the pieces Chair-Obscur (2002), WHA (2004) and OCCC (2006), Chopinot marks a new creative period in which she focuses on topics such as life, death, time, memory etc. and gradually changes the choreographic form dissolves. For WHA , Chopinot received the prize for the best French choreography from the “Syndicat professionel de la critique de theater, musique et danse”. OCCC can be understood as a review of her choreographic work, in which the audience experiences a journey through Chopinot's artistic past, whose distinctive style is visible at all times.

Educational work

Chopinot's choreographic work is closely linked to her work as a dance teacher . She has been training opera ballet dancers in Hanoi and La Rochelle since 2000. She also teaches at the University of Dance in Vietnam . As part of her tours, Chopinot usually also offers workshops where she passes on her skills to dancers worldwide and wants to create intensive artistic encounters.

Pieces

• Jardin de pierres (1978)
• Ma Grand'mère Hippocampe (1978)
• Pierre dans l'eau (1979)
• L'Origine des poissons (1979)
• Reflux (1979)
• À Réaction (1980)
• Halley's Comet (1981)
• Appel d'Air (1981)
• Grand Écart (1982)
• Simone Popinot , (1982)
• Swim One (1982)
• Délices (1983), 8 dancers and actors
• Via (1984), 5 dancers
• Les Rats (1984), choreography for the dancers of the “Groupe de Recherche Chorégraphique” of the Opéra Garnier (GRCOP) in Paris
• Rude Raid (1984), video, 13 min.

  Direction & production: Marc Caro | Choreography: Régine Chopinot

• Fred le Bordel (1985), 4 dancers
• Rossignol (1985), 9 dancers
• Le Défilé (1985), 16 dancers, actors and models
• A la Rochelle, il n'y a pas que des pucelles… (1986), 9 dancers
• Gustave (1987), film 35 mm, 6 min. Directed by Régine Chopinot
• KOK (1988), 4 dancers, 1 actor, 1 singer and 1 pianist
• Transport (1989), 4 dancers
• Ana (1990), 19 dancers
• Saint-Georges (1991), 12 dancers
• Façade (1993), 11 dancers, 1 narrator and 1 orchestra
• Soli - Bach (1994), 10 dancers. Costumes: Jean-Paul Gaultier
• Végétal (1995), 15 dancers. Set designer: Andy Goldsworthy
• Colonne (1997)
• Paroles du Feu (1997)
• Les Quatre Saisons (1998)
• Chant de lune (1999)
• La Danse du Temps (1999)
• Trans (E) (2000)
• Moi Monstre (2000)
• Chair-Obscur , (2002), 6 dancers
• Le Sentiment océanique (2002)
• Non , new variation of Chant de lune (2003)
• WHA (Warning Hazardous Area) (2004), 10 dancers. Costumes: Jean-Paul Gaultier
• Les Garagistes (2005)
• OCCC (2006)

Current projects and cultural-political background

In the recent past, Chopinot received only a few invitations from established dance and theater houses, which can be seen in connection with her criticism of the institutionalization and commercialization of contemporary dance and its increasingly radical pieces. Instead, she is increasingly showing her work in independent art houses such as LES GARAGISTES | GARAGE in December 2007 at the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin :

“Your aim is to enter into unfiltered communication with the audience, free from the constraints of a large apparatus. […] Here [in the Kunsthaus Tacheles] she, who has been director of the renowned Center Chorégraphique National de La Rochelle for over 20 years, can give space to her unbroken ability to develop artistic relevance outside of established institutions. And that with a piece that is more of a minimalist test laboratory than a choreographic object: GARAGE. "

“For me the Tacheles is a symbol of freedom and independence… I was impressed by its unvarnished beauty and vitality… Precisely because I come from the institution, I am now trying to save everything that is superfluous that is built up around art. I'm coming to Berlin to find out whether, as an artist, I have the strength to do without intermediaries such as curators or agents. "

“Chopinot chose the Tacheles from among the venues in Berlin that are suitable for her work. First of all because of its warm and brutal beauty. And then because of his nakedness, because he lacks almost everything except a great past. That is where your ideal GARAGE looks like. Has anything better been created since then? The entire cultural policy, which after the great time of the Tacheles in Germany, but also in France, in Europe, with great effort to direct the artists and their milieus more to categorical and less categorical occupations, has created something better than that Freedom that was in the foreground in Tacheles? Have we come closer to artistic creation or have we moved away from it? 'Moving on' in art does not always have the meaning that one first assumes. "

LES GARAGISTES | GARAGE is a solo piece that Chopinot dances himself, accompanied by guitarist and keyboardist Gianni-Grégory Fornet and lighting designer Maryse Gautier:

“She walks, she doesn't float. The small, wiry Régine Chopinot stamps like a construction worker. LES GARAGISTES - the auto mechanic - has called the rebel of contemporary dance her latest piece. That means workshop, repair, experiment. The movements remain an endless series of daring possibilities, an aesthetic gamble of the moment. [...] The mostly rough chords by guitarist Gianni-Grégory Fornet and light squares by Maryse Gautier provide impulses. For a few minutes Chopinot empathizes with the mixture of sounds and colors. Then - suddenly the movement explodes. This game of patience exhausts the audience. It is exhausting. But it never loses tension. "

About Chopinot

“For her, choreography no longer means a series of objects danced or of dance concepts that have emerged, emerged or yet to emerge. It is an endless going back up on paths that have never been paved, to countries that have never been crossed and that are always bare, quieter, to the point where shapes appear, the point where they can also and finally disappear again. Creating something then no longer means realizing something, no longer expanding reality through the regular production of art objects or more or less exciting aesthetic concepts, creating then means dissolving reality towards creation, it by constantly going up again Dispose of the object. "

Web links

• Ballet Atlantique-Régine Chopinot

Individual evidence

1. ^ Utopian: Régine Chopinot with GARAGE . In: Berliner Zeitung , November 30, 2007
2. ^ Frank Weigand (text): Tanzraum Berlin, 11-12 2007, p. 3
3. ↑ tacheles.de
4. ^ Simone Thielmann, in: Kölner Stadtanzeiger , September 10, 2005
5. ↑ tacheles.de