Boris Charmatz - Association Edna

Gala, Athènes 2007

One of the leading lights of France’s conceptual choreography movement, Boris Charmatz has been calling the stereotypes of contemporary dance into question from his very first works. Having studied at the Ecole de Dance de l’ Opéra de Paris and then at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Dance in Lyon, he was engaged as a dancer first by Régine Chopinot and later by Odile Duboc/Compagnie Contrejour, co-founding the Association edna (1992) with Dimitri Chamblas during the same period. Together, they choreographed and performed A bras le corps (1993), a duet, followed a year later by Les Disparates (1994), a two-headed solo for a dancer and a sculpture by Toni Grand. A duet provided the matrix for their choreography of Con Forts Fleuve (1999), is presented here in its initial and most stripped-down version: only the original costumes are retained, along with the essence of this ‘smothered’ choreography in which the dancers’ heads are covered with trousers whose legs are tied around their neck.