ENG - Booklet - Cie Philippe Saire

2014 | April 2015 promotion pack
Choreography for 5 dancers
Creation at Théâtre Sévelin 36
Premiere 19 November 2014
Coproduced by Théâtre Forum Meyrin
version : CieSaire_UtopiaMia_E_150324
Complete video recording: https://vimeo.com/113895401 (password: utopiasevelin)
Info, tour: http://www.philippesaire.ch/utopia-mia/
THIS ISN’T...!
3
IN THE PRESS
3
DANCE & POLITICS
4
MUSIC5
STAGE DESIGN
5
REVOLUTIONS OR
THE ARCHIPELAGO OF NOWHERE
8
DANCE AFTER UTOPIA
9
BIOGRAPHIES10
UTOPIA MIA
CREATION / DURATION
2014 / 70 min.
COPRODUCTION
Théâtre Forum Meyrin
DISTRIBUTION
Choreography Philippe Saire
In collaboration with the dancers 
Géraldine Chollet, Philippe Chosson,
Lee Davern, Maïté Minh Tâm Jeannolin,
Antonio Montanile
Dramatist Roberto Fratini Serafide
Assistant Émilie Launay-Bobillot
Set & light design Éric Soyer
Video design Renaud Rubiano
Sound design Stéphane Vecchione
Musical research Valérie Niederoest
Costumes Isa Boucharlat
Make-up Nathalie Monod
Technical director Vincent Scalbert
Lighting Pascal Di Mito
Sound & video mix Xavier Weissbrodt
Graphic design & photography 
maitère grise | Philippe Weissbrodt
Video teaser Pierre-Yves Borgeaud
MUSIC
Television: Marquee Moon; Jefferson Airplane:
White Rabbit; Set Fire to Flames: Your Guts are
Like Mine; David Bowie: Heroes; X-Ray Spex:
Oh Bondage Up Yours!; Major Lazer: Get Free;
John Lennon: Imagine; Pink Floyd: Echoes;
Nico: My Only Child
SUPPORT & PARTNERSHIP
Ville de Lausanne, Canton de Vaud, Pro Helvetia
– Swiss Arts Council, Loterie Romande, Sandoz
Family Foundation, Fondation Meyrinoise du
Casino, Fondation Sophie & Karl Binding, Migros
culture percentage, Sixt
PERFORMANCES
Théâtre Sévelin 36, Lausanne (CH) 
19 until 30 November 2014 – Premiere
Théâtre Forum Meyrin, Meyrin (CH) 
4 and 5 December 2014
Théâtre Nuithonie, Fribourg (CH) 
9 and 10 December 2014
Forum Saint-Georges, Delémont (CH) 
11 and 12 December 2014
(Further dates on www.philippesaire.ch)
CONTACT
Administration & communication, press
Valérie Niederoest
[email protected]
Promotion & tour management
Gábor Varga
[email protected]
Cie Philippe Saire
Av. de Sévelin 36
CP 110
CH – 1000 Lausanne 20
T +41 21 620 00 12
[email protected]
www.philippesaire.ch
Design matière grise Translation AJS Craker
T
o this day, key player in the Swiss
contemporary dance scene Philippe
Saire has produced some thirty
shows, in addition to in situ performances,
short films and workshops.
Saire’s choreographic work features elements from many other related fields of interest, such as visual arts, theatre, cinema, etc.,
while always focusing on intense and refined
productions.
Vacarme, Étude sur la Légèreté, Vie et Mœurs
du Caméléon Nocturne, La Haine de la Musique,
Les Affluents, [ob]seen, Could I just draw your
attention to the brevity of life? and Black Out
are some of the shows that have enabled
Cie Philippe Saire to build an international
reputation.
Since its inception in 1986, Saire’s dance
company has performed over 1,000 shows in
over 180 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle
East, Africa and America.
In 1995 Saire inaugurated his own creative workspace, Théâtre Sévelin 36. Located
in Lausanne, the theatre is dedicated to contemporary dance, and hosts performances of
international stature, as well as local dance
acts, with the aim of helping promote their
work. Théâtre Sévelin 36 was the laureate
of the “Prix spécial de danse 2013” awarded
© Gregory Batardon
by the Swiss Federal Office for Culture.
From 2002 to 2012, Saire’s Cartographies project, which combined performances in the
city of Lausanne with video production, bore
witness to his constant desire to get dance
out of the interior performing space. The 11
in situ dance performances, filmed by 9 producers from French-speaking Switzerland,
including Lionel Baier, Fernand Melgar, Bruno
Deville, Pierre-Yves Borgeaud and Philippe
Saire himself, were released in the spring of
2013 as a book-DVD-collection and are frequently screened at various festivals around
the world.
THIS
ISN’T...!
T
his isn’t a militant play or a hippy
play. This isn’t a play about the 70s.
This isn’t a play about the history of
utopia through the centuries. The simple
idea of utopia arouses opinions and desires,
and everyone has his own. Philippe Saire’s is
deeply personal.
A performance for 3 male and 2 female
dancers, Utopia Mia questions our personal
relationship with utopia. The show produces
heavenly images, scrutinises for any militant
surge, and reveals its sometimes-inherent
disappointments. It takes shape on an island
and follows the rhythm of rebellious songs,
old and new, like the tracks of a record played
at double speed.
It’s the Occupy movement, originating in
Madrid, that drove the choreographer to start
working on the subject. He was moved by this
anti-capitalist movement, which for the first
time since the 70s in the Western world rallied
a large population. Very soon, he realised he
IN THE
PRESS
would use a personal approach, a personal
vision of utopia, of its effects on the mind and
the body. He had to create a play where the
dancers’ movements would evoke significant
change, where bodies would be marked by
struggles, where music would transcend
ideals.
Utopia for the enchanted dream of an island where everything can start afresh.
Mia for the suitability of a subject by
a choreographer.
Marie Chavanieux
La Terrasse, 26.11.14
When Swiss choreographer Philippe
Saire thinks back on his youth, his
dancers drift in a multiplicity of physical
states. A great public success, Utopia Mia
is a fantastically vibrant journey.
Pascale Stocker
Le Quotidien Jurassien, 4.12.14
FOREWORD BY PHILIPPE SAIRE
My transition into adulthood was steeped in the 1970s, which were marked by May 1968,
Woodstock and Flower Power. I was non-violent, against consumer society. I believed we could
change the world if we all gathered together. I genuinely believed in all of it.
The recent Occupy movement made me want to question our utopias, to rethink my desires
and aspirations as a young adult, and to find out how a dance show could translate all this.
Soon it became obvious to me that dance was an area where politics had to be expressed
through personal implications; that I had to present a truly personal interpretation of utopia, of
my own perception of those times, and of how I could relate utopia to a recent past.
Bodies and images are steeped in our own ambivalence, aspirations, rejections, struggles,
attempts at transcendence, forgetfulness, and denial of reality. In our fundamental desire to feel
good in the world, and in a world that is good.
The process left me with only a few rare historical references, like distorted traces of a recent
past. In this play, the 70s appear with a slightly derisory imagery. The evocation is amusing, but
the perception is both tender and doubtful, like our collective memory.
I avoided nostalgia and I devoted myself to make timeless, that which the performers experience, to compose a personal fresco that relates to both our condition as desiring human beings
and to our dispositions.
U-topias – these virtual countries – have never succeeded. ‘Utopic’ today has become synonymous with ‘irrational’. They still have the merit of questioning what our ‘rationality’ consists of,
and if it is really in line with our desires. I am certain that it is vital at times to abandon the side
of powerlessness, and salutary to join the side of innocence, to remember the ‘why’ questions of
our childhood.
Finally, a dance show is essentially a utopia: To express and maintain awareness, to resist the
demise of otherness, of the way people might set eyes on others, to resist the screen and how it
captures the gaze we cast on others, resisting the screens that captivate and hold our gaze… I tell
myself that this is how my utopia might come true.
April 2015
After the experimental NEONS last
January, Swiss choreographer
Philippe Saire returns with Utopia Mia
in Lausanne. A very personal, joyful and
endearing piece of work.
Cie Philippe Saire | Utopia Mia
The performance at Théâtre Sévelin 36
in Lausanne opens with a small community of youngsters hanging out, sitting
on a sloping platform. Like some miniature Woodstock. Atop their ‘hill’, peace
and tranquillity prevail. But sometimes a
member of the community escapes and
drops down onto the stage’s flat surface.
Sometimes, there is no more than the
slight movement of a toe. At other times,
silence is broken by the powerful sounds
of a guitar and the five dancers go wild,
throwing their heads backwards and
running madly across the stage. The ecstatic frenzy of the 70s is felt, yet it never
feels like a cliché. And this is, once again,
where the quality of Philippe Saire’s work
resides. (…)
In Utopia Mia, Philippe Saire remembers his own Woodstock but doesn’t
impose any ready-made images, leaving
the space open for other utopias…
Isabelle Jakob
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 28.11.14
The play is charged with the emotion
and atmosphere of [Saire’s] previous
shows, NEONS especially with Éric Soyer’s
beautiful light design. Philippe Saire returns with a truly physical confrontation
on the topic of utopia. And in so doing,
he relies on the most playful and noticeable aspect of the 1968 revolution: Good
old rock music. (…)
suite en page 4
3
Inspired by these tunes, the dancers
begin jousting and playing, with solos,
duos and in groups. This might be the
most interesting element of the show,
since it humorously probes the limit
between hedonistic dance and individualistic revolutionary stance, with
choreography that feeds off the codes
of rock music while distorting them into
something sharper, epileptic even (…).
It is a simple but not simplistic way of
questioning an era through its gestures.
Pierre Lepori
Les Matinales, RTS Espace 2, 21.11.14
Don’t expect this new show to give you
an overview of contemporary utopias.
Devoid of militancy, simply moved by the
Occupy movement and the memory of
May ‘68, Philippe Saire gives his point of
view, personal and subjective, on these
great multi-facetted community dreams.
“With this show, I wanted to talk about
maintaining our desire for change,
alive”, says Saire. “Even if it is difficult,
even if it doesn’t work, this is my utopia,
in essence. I tried not to date it and it
remains personal. Today, on stage,
politics should be expressed through its
personal implications.” (…)
What is Utopia Mia about? Crowd
movements, parties which verge on disaster at times, passion, urgency, anger,
contagious enthusiasm, and also the
difficulty of speaking up. With his performers, the choreographer sought “a
choreographed piece that doesn’t aim
for distance, dramatization or parody,
but on true commitment.”
DANCE & POLITICS
O
ne of the more obvious evolutions of
utopia is that it has become unclear
which enemy should be fought
against or which ideal should be fought for.
“And the fact that war is evil, that various
forms of dehumanization are generated by
poverty–material, economic and cultural–via
the saturation of the mental space with certain types of images, all this forges a fresh
consensus. And yet it isn’t enough, undoubtedly, to cause a shift in political will. It seems
widespread nowadays that no principle of
truth can be posited as a utopian horizon for
today’s society. Yet the question of the transformation of the world and of the purpose
of art remains ever present, even if it’s toned
down.” (Nancy Delhalle, in Alternatives théâtrales, No. 100: Poétique et politique)
Nowadays, rather than a bold distinction
between good and evil, it is the revelation of
our ambivalence that generates material for
the stage: the tension between the collective
dimension and the individual for example. It
may well not change the world, but it might
raise awareness about a world that needs
changing.
Mireille Descombes
Le Matin Dimanche, 9.11.14
4
Cie Philippe Saire | Utopia Mia
April 2015
MUSIC
E
ach song like an island: The show is
designed and structured like a record,
with its tunes and its interludes, every
track with its title and its own action, like so
many attempts to recreate the world, your
own world. With music as a rallying force
and a personal projection.
We relied on the collective psyche of protest songs that for some of them pervaded
their times with their powerful messages. At
times there was a lack of political thought in
the 60s and 70s. Bluntly put, it could be said
that music replaced ideology. Woodstock
was perceived as much as a revolutionary
gathering as a concert.
With the advent of the Internet, music remains an anti-establishment media that can
rapidly touch the masses. At the same time,
it recreates paradoxes associated with it:
Is the form of the song itself compatible with
any genuine challenge? Originating from the
system, can it still change the system? Won’t
the melody and the band’s make up get in the
way of its substance?
Pascal Quignard, in The Hatred of Music
(a book about his love for music), describes
the mechanics of this rallying force, and its
perversions too. Music relies on a loss of self,
April 2015
which is usually beneficial, but can be dangerous if manipulated. To quote Lenin: “If you
want slaves, you’ll need lots of music.”
In light of these facts, warned of the possible problems, we felt it was essential to put
music at the centre of Utopia Mia. Music structures the play and any word, spoken, projected or sung during the show, is part of the
lyrics of songs. Songs act as dialogue, or as a
substitute for dialogue and political projects.
For the sake of consistency, we confined
ourselves to one style–rock music–bearing
in mind that blues, rap, funk, reggae, grime,
ska, chanson, and electronic music among
others have provided and still provide the
soundtrack to anti-establishment and nonconformist movements.
STAGE DESIGN
Thomas More situated his “utopia”–his ideal republic–on an island. All concrete attempts
at creating a different world have implied isolation, a break with civilisation, a withdrawn
form of autarky with its own rules, quite restrictive, maybe even totalitarian in the end.
The topos of the island inspired the stage set, with a sloping platform alluding to this.
Its ‘signifiers’ opened up little by little: a raft rocked by the waves, a ramp to propel oneself
towards gaping new horizons, chronic instability…
A raft – an island surrounded by waves of music.
In the background, the sea is projected, accentuating the image. Based on a realistic
sea, the image becomes more and more abstract, billowing and escaping, loosing grasp
on reality. As we fail to modify reality, we take the path of imagination.
Cie Philippe Saire | Utopia Mia
5
REVOLUTIONS OR
THE ARCHIPELAGO OF NOWHERE
Roberto Fratini Serafide, dramatist
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
Benjamin Britten
…down went Alice after the white rabbit,
never once considering how in the world
she was to get out again.
Lewis Carroll
A
s history was left disillusioned with
itself, dreams of a new beginning,
a reset, a new era, a drastic
regeneration proliferated madly. Collective
imagination danced to its tune again and
again, always ready for a new flirt with the
temptation of a new beginning; always
seduced by the electrifying idea of a future
without past.
While the Western world fell apart, Utopia
was nothing else than a chronic burst of an
irresistible desire for History–with its overload
of causes and things–to obey for once the
telluric law of the great disasters and earthquakes that undo and rebuild the world; as
long as Earth triumphs over the world and
life triumphs over survival. As long as Nature,
the mother of new beginnings, triumphs over
Culture. Utopia is nothing more than ecology
applied to humanity. It is perfect in as much
that it is inhabited, like the pretty projection of the nightmare of a world without us.
Too technically superficial to stand: odds and
8
ends, cities endlessly built and rebuilt, a perpetually unfinished model…
Such eruptions of the imagination could
not happen without shaping or giving birth
to a floating geography of fortunate islands
and hidden continents: A fanciful archipelago of boundless places and lost opportunities. Every fossil in Paradise keeps piling up
there.
Utopia, of course. We want to believe in
it. There’s a chronic surge for it. It revolves.
And it floats, right in the middle of the ripple, of the chronic nauseating movements
of History. Looking for an ideal anchorage,
it only exists as a perpetual migration, ‘ever
renewed’ like Valéry’s sea: a colourful drop of
oil inside a vintage lamp. Strangely sedative.
As such, we have interpreted utopias
as stations on a grand journey towards
Nowhere. A journey which, by the simple fact
of starting, has already been accomplished.
Because utopia is like a short-circuit: It makes
desire look like pretension; its beginning is
its end (in more ways than one); it gives the
hereafter (the vanishing point for all the
world’s dissatisfaction) the shape of the Here
and Now. That is why it has regularly ended
up betraying the sacred mirage of new generations, growing up in the certainty of knowing how to rejuvenate the decrepitude of the
planet and its shackles.
Utopia Mia is meant as a tribute to the last
of these primal surges; of the outburst, half
tiresome half-heroic, of a whole generation
Cie Philippe Saire | Utopia Mia
who wanted the new world to be musical,
and who danced to its own utopia, rooting it
in the cult of the instant, loving the idea of an
action as brief and psychedelic as the length
of a song. A whole generation who saw a
world revolution in the revolutions of vinyl
records, who danced on the edge of the present, between a conveniently indefinite past
and a conveniently infinite future (‘Above us
only sky’, says John Lennon’s Imagine). It is
understandable that on this slippery crest it
may be difficult to resist any longer than a
meer ‘beginning’ (‘It is just a beginning’ eventually became its motto), and that it is easier
from here to turn our backs on History rather
than look it right in the face.
It is true that every utopia is a spring box
full of clichés, cheap nostalgia, used symbols, obsolete instructions and cult names,
and that it exudes a certain superficiality:
It is the ‘technical’ superficiality of the raft
floating towards the promised land; and it is
a structural superficiality to believe that we
only need to numb our conscience of reality
in order to dream of another world. As such,
we have had to ride this paradox with a certain lightness, which verges more on learned
nostalgia than irony, which focuses on awakening rather than amazement. And when the
dream of a new world drowns, the froth of a
new dream surfaces in its air bubbles. Based
on this Archimedes’ principle of a utopian
dream, all we can do is laugh (Utopia Mia is
hilarious at times), or resist the temptation
to cry, because there is nothing disgraceful
about dreaming. Let’s smile, then.
Utopia Mia tenderly plays this broken record, like the soundtrack of this dream of immediacy that was the latest utopia in history;
drawing in each song the strange beauty of a
false start that was nonetheless a true act of
sharing. Because rock music was the lullaby
for the last of the unborn futures; of a last
voyage doomed to fail. Since from its raft, its
barricade, its stage, its “point of view”, it was
so easy to confuse project and projection.
And yet, the beauty of the projection was well
worth the failure.
April 2015
DANCE
AFTER UTOPIA
Michel Layaz, writer
What has become of our utopias? There are those who believed
in them, those who never believed, those who enjoyed believing in
them. Every utopia relates to a time. And time passes. And utopia
dies. And then is born again, with other people, other surges, other
speeches, other concerns. And nothing is exactly the same. Yes, utopia
is a form of naivety, of foolishness even: ideal cities are pipe dreams,
artificial paradises an abyss, free love a joke, militant speeches belligerent words. So what? Those who enjoyed believing in utopia were
obsessed, transformed and defined by it, empowered and energised
by it.
No matter that utopia, whatever its guise (faith in justice, beauty,
peace, religion, progress, etc.), is but an illusion or a consolation, it is
a welcome escape from the despair of being alone, faced with oneself, not in the relief or the haven of creation but in the hardening of
the soul, that which refuses all struggle, all involvement. In this case,
the worst happens: numbness in material life, vanity, soulless matters,
sterile satisfactions, and everything we are in such a hurry to define as
a ‘happy life’. How can one be satisfied with so little? Quick! May other
songs be born anew, in fervour and joyfulness, owing nothing to no
one, starting with a clean slate, and a clean slate from a clean slate if
need be! As for our utopia, the one we enjoyed believing in, let us watch
it with tenderness, like a dear old friend who’s slightly soft in the head,
a friend who rambles on when everything around him has changed.
But from this utopia, we all find our own lights, our own words, our
own colours, our own gestures, and our own paths. Born again after
one’s utopia and being able to say: This is where it all begins.
AFTER-SHOW MESSAGE – 22 NOVEMBER 2014 | Patrick Le Mauff, actor and director
This is the first time I have seen this recent period, our youth, addressed with such sensitivity. Managing to highlight the jewels that hide inside
the vital surges that make us question the world order: That is the true miracle.
Yes, this ‘sensitivity’ which rejects conventional representations, preferring instead to reach for the heart of matters and of the bodies that
present them. The term ‘sensitivity’ does not evoke cheap sentimentality, far from it. Rather it refers to a non-brutal way of grasping these events,
like you would hold the fragile wings of a butterfly.
I don’t doubt that this show will be significant for your dance company. It’s a real gem, a magnifying glass in the shape of a happy tear, which
enables us to watch the living close-up. A tear of happiness that transforms into an attentive microscope and digs into memory with the curiosity
of an entomologist.
I wondered what the young generation might make of such a ‘distant’ period in time, but in truth the five dancers’ enthusiasm provides the
best answer.
These youngsters, who look like they’re playing ‘older’ selves, are evidence that they’re speaking of their own generation too; of the here and
now; of the incredible urge for life that animates every generation, even if they don’t all have the same faces and shapes.
This is the best tribute you could pay while evoking the ‘70s, simply saying: ‘Look, life isn’t over; everything goes on, but differently.’ We look
back with you to throw ourselves into the future, without always realising it. Look, the vibrant heart is still there. The costumes have changed and
so has the music, but the heart still beats the same.
It is the best tribute you could pay to the incredible beauty of the Occupy movement, whether in Spain or elsewhere.
Tonight, I have attended a rare marriage: The art of marrying politics and poetry. Only René Char’s Leaves of Hypnos has moved me to such
an extent with its capacity to bring together two words that seem so distant.
April 2015
Cie Philippe Saire | Utopia Mia
9
BIOGRAPHIES
PHILIPPE SAIRE
witness to Saire’s constant desire to get
Choreographer
dance out of the interior performing
projects followed, with Bruno
Tallin, Tel-Aviv, Wuppertal…). Antonio
space. The 11 in situ pieces, filmed by
Dizien, Laura de Nercy, Mathieu
has also choreographed Punto con
where he spent the first five years of
9 producers from French-speaking
Poirot-Delpech (producer), Laure
Fondo (2002), Niedich (2003), and
his life. He later moved to Lausanne
Switzerland, including Lionel Baier,
Bonicel, Coline Serreau (producer),
Un Fiasco di nervi (2008), which won
where he studied and trained in
Fernand Melgar, Bruno Deville,
Pascal Montrouge, Michèle Rust,
the Fabbrica Europa Dance Festival
contemporary dance before going
Pierre-Yves Borgeaud and Philippe
Jean-Marc Heim, Héla Fattoumi
“Moving” Award in Italy. He worked,
abroad–including a spell in Paris–to
Saire himself, were released in 2013
and Eric Lamoureux, and Benjamin
among others, with Caterina Sagna
pursue his training. In 1986, he created
as a book-DVD-collection and are
Silvestre (producer). Chosson joined
for 7 years, on Basso Ostinato, Relation
his own company in the region of
frequently screened at various festivals.
Cie Philippe Saire in 2005 and has
Publique, Pompei and Heiltanz. He has
This taste for experimentation
been working with Christian Rizzo
also worked with Simone Sandroni,
(Association Fragile) since 2008.
and Maria Clara Villalobos’ children
Philippe Saire was born in Algeria
Lausanne, Switzerland, which went on
Other dance and cinematic
Tunis, Prague, Roma, Montreal,
to develop its own creative repertoire
also led to the creation of 2011’s
and actively contributed to the
Black Out (which reached 100 perfor-
emergence of contemporary dance
mances in 2014): a dance piece which
LEE DAVERN
Saire’s Cartographie no. 11, as well as
throughout Switzerland.
takes place in a cube, with a limited
Dancer
several of Saire’s other shows.
In 1995, Philippe Saire inaugurated
audience standing atop the stage.
his own creative workspace, Théâtre
show Têtes à Têtes, and on Philippe
Having worked previously as a
Montanile has obtained a State
plumber, Lee Davern graduated from
diploma at the CND in Lyon as a
contemporary dance teacher.
Sévelin 36. Located in Lausanne, the
GÉRALDINE CHOLLET
three years professional training at
theatre is dedicated to contemporary
Dancer
the Northern School of Contemporary
Dance, Leeds, in 2005 at the age of
MAÏTÉ MINH TÂM JEANNOLIN
of international stature, as well as
Géraldine Chollet trained at the
23. Soon thereafter he began dancing
Dancer
local dance acts in a bid to help
Laban Centre in London. Back in
professionally in the UK. Despite
promote their work. Théâtre Sévelin
Switzerland, she worked and danced
working as a part-time barman, he
dancer/choreographer currently
36 is the laureate of the “Prix spécial
with several dance companies (Cie
still danced with such companies as
working in Brussels. After following
de danse 2013” awarded by the Swiss
Gaspard Buma, Cie Fabienne Berger,
Attik Dance, Wired Aerial Theatre and
prevocational training programmes
Federal office for Culture.
Cie Prototype Status, Cie Jessica
Protein Dance.
in France (Roanne, Junior ballet
dance and hosts performances
In 1998, Philippe Saire was
Born in Switzerland in 1975,
Huber, Cie T2+, Cie Utilité Publique).
Since then, he has worked with
Maïté Minh Tâm Jeannolin is a
d’Aquitaine/Bordeaux), in the
awarded the “Grand Prix” by
Since 2006, she has been training
the Dance Theatre of Ireland (Dublin),
Netherlands (Codarts) and, more
the Fondation Vaudoise pour la
with Ohad Naharin and the Batsheva
Alias (Geneva), and Jasmin Vardimon
recently, in Brussels (P.A.R.T.S), she is
promotion et la création artistiques.
Dance Company to teach GaGa
(London) and taken part in two
now based with a group of artists in
That same year, he won the Author
movement language to dance and
productions, namely To be straight
an alternative space in Brussels, which
Award from the General Council of
theatre professionals and amateurs.
with you and Can we talk about this,
combines visual arts, recording studio
Seine Saint-Denis (France) at the
She teaches at the Manufacture
and world tours with DV8 Physical
and working spaces.
6th International Choreographic
(HETSR), in Bern, Ballett and at
Theatre. (London).
Meeting for his piece Étude sur la
Marchepied in Lausanne. In addition
Légèreté. And in 2004, ProTanz Zurich
to this she continues her personal
after a short stint dancing in Medea
other works from Belgium and many
awarded him the Swiss dance and
research on voice and movement.
at Theatre des Champs-Elysees, he
other countries (Birdwatching 4x4 by
found himself working with Christian
Benjamin Vandewalle, Drifting, Ville
PHILIPPE CHOSSON
& Francois Ben Aim CFB 451. Davern is
Tentaculaire). She has been invited
Dancer
also soon due to start working with Le
as a guest for workshops in France
Guetteur (Paris).
(Centre de danse Belleville) and Latvia
choreography prize.
Since 2003 Philippe Saire
has taught movement at the
Manufacture–a theatre school in
French-speaking Switzerland.
Born in 1969, Philippe Chosson
Lee then moved to Paris and
began with acting. In 1987, he was
Jeannolin has danced in
creations of her own as well as in
(Latvian Academy of Arts), and has
awarded the “Prix de l’humour” from
ANTONIO MONTANILE
also organised her own contempo-
30 shows to date, with more than
the Conservatoire d’art dramatique
Dancer
rary dance workshops in the French
1,000 performances in 180 towns and
Rhône-Alpes–in theatre improvisation.
Cie Philippe Saire has produced
cities across Europe, Asia, Africa, the
Middle East and America.
He then took up mime stud-
Antonio Montanile was 18 when
Alps for the last three years.
he entered the Accademia Isola
ies at the École Internationale de
Danza of the Venice Biennale. He then
ROBERTO FRATINI SERAFIDE
Dramatist
Mimodrame Marcel Marceau in Paris at
joined Carolyn Carlson’s company
regularly at exhibitions and art
first, and then with Corinne Soum and
where he worked for four years.
galleries, in parks and gardens, urban
Steven Wasson (assistants to Etienne
spaces and other outdoor venues.
Decroux). By 1993, he had turned to
in collaboration with the Teatro
Pisa, Roberto Fratini Serafide became
physical theatre with Laura Scozzi.
Massimo of Palermo, commis-
assistant and co-dramatist for the
sioned him to produce his first solo,
choreographer Micha van Hoecke
The dance company performs
From 2002 to 2012,
the Cartographies project, which
A decisive encounter with Bernard
In 2001, the Venice Biennale,
After studying drama theory
at the Scuola Normale Superiore in
combined performances in the city of
Glandier in 1997 (Cie Alentours) led him
Quduo, with which he then toured
from 1995 to 1998. He produced his
Lausanne and video production, bore
to dancing.
internationally (London, Milan,
own shows in Palermo in 1997 and
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Cie Philippe Saire | Utopia Mia
April 2015
1998 with the Substanz Company.
Roberto Fratini Serafide has been
teaching dance theory as a professor
at the University of Pisa since 2002
and at the CSD (Conservatori Superior
de Dansa) in Barcelona since 2003. He
gives regular lectures on the history
of dance and writes articles on dance
theory in a number of Italian as well
as foreign journals.
He is also the author of Nodo
Parlato, a collection of poems
published by Crocetti in Italy in 2000.
Since 2001, he has been working
with Caterina Sagna as a playwright ,
notably for Sorelline, Relation Publique,
Heil Tanz and Basso Ostinato.
ERIC SOYER
Light and set designer
After studying such concepts as
ephemeral architecture at the École
Boulle, Eric Soyer began designing
stage sets and lights for several stage
directors and choreographers in
Europe.
Since 2006, he has been working
in association with Hermès for whom
he did the light design for the Salon
de Musique, unique music and dance
shows with Shantala Shivalingappa
and Ferran Salva, Raphael Delaunay
and Antoine Hervé, Ofesh Shechter,
David Drouard, and Rachid
Ouramdan.
In 1997, Eric Soyer began
working with writer and director Joël
Pommerat and their collaboration still
April 2015
continues today with the creation of
a repertoire of 18 shows of the awardwinning Compagnie Louis Brouillard.
In 2005, he was introduced to
choreography by choreographer
Nacera Belaza. An experience he
pursued with, among others, Thierry
Thieu Niang. He also embarked upon
contemporary opera with composers
Oscar Strasnoy, Oscar Bianchi, Daan
Jansen and Philippe Boesmans.
In 2008 and 2012, he received an
award from the Syndicat de la critique
journalistique française for his work.
RENAUD RUBIANO
Video designer
After university studies in
Aix-en-Provence, Renaud Rubiano
undertook visual arts research at the
Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Nimes and then
Marseille. He focused on video art,
sculpture and performance and was
awarded a diploma for his photos
and installations. Between 2003 and
2006, he exhibited in Brussels, Toulon,
Nimes, Draguignan and Marseille,
before moving to Paris in 2007, where
he worked with authors, composers,
choreographers and directors. He
developed his own video language,
using music, lights and bodies. His
work soon left the galleries for the
stage, as he questioned space by
combining light with video.
He then expanded his research
to include stage design, especially
focusing on the relationship between
different media. Nowadays, he writes
and produces videos and creates
installations in France and abroad.
Lausanne. She is also administrator
and communications officer for Cie
Philippe Saire.
STÉPHANE VECCHIONE
ISA BOUCHARLAT
Sound designer
Costumes designer
Stéphane Vecchione trained in
the Drama department (SPAD, Section
Professionnelle d’Art Dramatique), at
the Conservatoire de Lausanne, from
1995 to 1999. He then began working
as a performer and musician for
several dance companies and artists,
such as Stefan Kaegi, Denis Maillefer,
Massimo Furlan, Nicole Seiler, Corinne
Rochet and Nicholas Pettit. He is also
a founding member of the band
Velma, for which he was awarded
the “Jeunes Créateurs Musique” prize
from the Fondation Vaudoise pour la
Promotion et les Créations Artistiques.
Vecchione has worked on
soundtracks for several Philippe
Saire shows: Je veux bien vous croire,
Black Out, La Dérive des continents–a
piece in which he also performs–and
NEONS Never Ever, Oh! Noisy Shadows.
After training as a costume
designer in Paris while working on
various productions, Isa Boucharlat
moved to Geneva in 1991 where she
worked with Bernard Meister at the
Théâtre du Grütli until 1998. During
that time, she directed a costume
workshop, which was first set up for
Manfred Karge and his students.
Boucharlat then worked for different
companies in French-speaking
Switzerland and, in 1997, she met
director Denis Maillefer and became
costume designer for the Théâtre en
Flammes where she still works today.
Since 2005, she has worked
regularly with Oskar Gomez Matta
and Cie L’Alakran, Antoine Jaccoud
and Cie Selma 95, Muriel Imbach and
Cie La Bocca della Luna.
Her partnership with Philippe
Saire and his company started back
in 1997 and she was the one to design
the costumes for the different Swiss
filmmakers for the Cartographies
project–films & choreography. She
also created the costumes for Bruno
Deville’s short feature film.
VALÉRIE NIEDEROEST
Musical research
A musician in several groups such
as Toboggan, Meril Wubslin–with
Velma member Christian Garcia–and
Wild Guys, Valérie Niederoest was
a founding member of and artistic
co-director at the Romandie Rock
Club in Lausanne, after studying
political science at the University of
Cie Philippe Saire | Utopia Mia
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