Fashion historian Olivier Sailard curates a contemporary wardrobe inspired by the legendary female choreographers who moved and impressed him. A tribute in words and images to these seven great artists.
Historian Olivier Sailard, director of the Alaïa Foundation and artistic director of JM Weston House, is also an author of artistic performances. last, Playing Pasolini, With Tilda Swinton, pays tribute to the Italian director. For Madame Figaro, he evokes the tempo, gesture and style of the great choreographers in dance history who have marked him.
Loïe Fuller, Belle Époque performer
“He dances with the clothes, plays with them. It’s the clothes that make the show with hypnotic movement. It’s almost a conceptual gesture. This American dancer and choreographer, one of the pioneers of modern dance, participated in the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900, danced at the Folies Bergère. He presents his first dances there as The Serpentine Dance, The Violet. Loi Fuller is passionate about science, technical progress, she uses artificial light, colors, creates fabulous costumes to transform reality. Back then women were corseted. She, she frees the female body, becomes a flower, a butterfly in her light costumes that spin, fly, fly away. He’s also daringly avant-garde when he creates phosphorescent costumes by putting lights in them. His shows are close to completion. It has become a reference and is often quoted by young artists.
“They gave me the desire and strength to start the exercise”
Olivier Sailard
Pina Bausch, dance theater
Like Pina Bausch. Jersey dress, Yohji Yamamoto. Eric Nehr
“It is an embodiment. we think of paintings by Edvard Munch, Egon Schiele. There is a strong autobiographical dimension to his works, much like his self-dubbing. Tormented faces have terrible power. Pina Bausch’s dance seems to be inhabited by the sufferings of life, the sufferings of the body. It’s hard work, every moment, strong discipline, like for example Azedin Alaia had in his studio. I like this idea of a workshop, a workshop where clothes are born, a movement of creativity. With the German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, who died in 2009, one immediately thinks of men in suits and slender women with bare arms in long dresses. These women are both powerful and fragile. He freed the movement of women’s bodies, opened his dance to theater, to emotions. He mixes dance, words, laughter, tears and says: “Let’s dance, let’s dance, or we’re lost.” His dance theater is like a reflection of us.”
Lucinda Childs, muse and creator
Like Lucinda Childs. Mesh body, Courrèges, cotton pants, Lemaire. Eric Nehr
“This American, who is 82 years old today, is at the same time an archetype of beauty, a beauty of fashion, dance and cinema. I am fascinated by faces, they say so much, even more than the body. Lucinda Childs embodies both academicism and modernity, capturing the artistic spirit of her time; it is the unification of all arts. He is interested in fashion. he created Collection for nine dresses, a ballet inspired by the cut dresses in the Hermès collection. It illuminates the space, it is airy. He is an avant-garde figure, after classical training he worked with Merce Cunningham.
In the 1970s he created a very repetitive, almost minimalist modern dance, with dance To the music of Philip Glass or with Bob Wilson Einstein on the beach. I saw it at the Châtelet, it was the scene that impressed me most. The dance is hypnotic, magical like eternal movement. it is a masterpiece of the XX.e century that transcends dance. Lucinda Childs is both muse and creator. He is very inspiring.”
Carolyn Carlson: The Sculpted Body
Like Carolyn Carlson. Viscose knit top and skirt, Alaïa. Eric Nehr
“He is very tall, muscular, his body is raw, skinned, veins, tendons are visible, he is an expressionist body, still beautiful at 80 years old. There is also the face with an intense look. It was with Carolyn Carlson that I discovered modern dance, another way of dancing. There is a power, an energy in him… He seems to be carving the air with his hands, with his body. He is a total artist, he likes to write poems, he paints. For him, dance is “visual poetry”, a way to speak to his unconscious. And I remember Alaia’s long, tight black dress in which she danced like a snake… She was also a pioneer, her hair pulled back before the models, little makeup, smoky eyes, with this impression of being on time. , to be natural, to be able to dance as long as possible, to adapt the dance to the body and to be in harmony with the universe. He also stated. “I can take all the images in the universe and become those images. I can become the universe.”
Martha Graham, ultra-modern attitude
Like Martha Graham. Crepe jersey dress, Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello. Eric Nehr
“It’s like she’s dancing in 1980s clothes, even a stretchy one. She chose her own dresses. This American greatly inspired the creators of those years. He was very close to fashion, moreover, we could see how he posed fashion Martha Graham is behind Loi Fuller. He is one of the founders of modern dance art. He invented a technique based on breathing, contraction and relaxation of the body. He founded his own school, The time crowned her “the dancer of the century”, and for her “dance is the secret language of the soul”. We see it Lament a solo concert around mourning, where, wrapped in a plum shirt, she stretches the fabric with her hands and feet. It’s incredibly powerful, very modern. Moreover, she danced for a very long time, she died at the age of 96… I am very impressed by the longevity of all these female choreographers. They gave me the taste of this genre, accompanied me on the dance path and gave me the desire and strength to throw myself into the performance exercise.
Trisha Brown, freelancer
Like Trisha Brown. Beaded silk crepe dress, Hermès. Eric Nehr
“He could dance barefoot, in a t-shirt and pants, like a street dance, come into the studio, and it’s beautiful. It’s a bit like that. “Come as you are.” Trisha Brown did ballet, bush, acrobatics. She embodies several forms of discipline and she has managed to reinvent dance. I love his ingenuity, his way of opening doors to other worlds. This American choreographer has danced a lot outside, on the roofs of New York, in galleries. In Paris, at the Autumn Festival, she danced at the Galliera Museum accumulations, experimental piece on motion repetition. His style is fluid. silky He said, but also called for great technicality. He is extremely elegant, a perfectionist who works a lot. She is also a plastic artist. He worked with artist Robert Rauschenberg, could dance on paper on the floor and even draw with his feet. I saw an exhibition of his dance paintings in Marseille. it is a gesture before the body. It’s wonderful. He has a taste for writing, freedom, naturalness, simplicity of a beautiful choreographer.
Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, rebellious energy
“He wants clothes to be ordinary, like non-clothes, a reflection of the collective unconscious. Since the 1980s, this Flemish choreographer, now 62, has also left an impression on our minds with his dancers in little black dresses, tops, white stockings and ankle boots, like schoolgirls; the image of a slightly rebellious young man. and who wants to exist. There is a crazy energy in this dance, just like the fight. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker plays on tension and acceleration. Music is very important to him: John Coltrane, Steve Reich, as well as Bach Six Brandenburg Concertos, or that Indian music. He often makes the dancers dialogue with the musicians on stage, as it were Cello suites live performance, or Vortex Temporum With the Ictus group. Great experience. We hear the music first, the dance comes, but in silence, and the third part combines the two. He likes to play on contrasts, and his dance is like the poetry of austerity.
Source: Le Figaro
