La primultime rencontre

Statut

Commission by Bernard Foccroulle, director of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. Creation on 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17 July 2010 at Grand Saint Jean.

Présentation

« Primultime », an uncommon term, refers to what is both first and last or, in other words, something that happens only once. This word, coined by the philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch, characterised for him time, memory or music, which he speaks about in his Prague and Paris classes.

‘Was it Prague?’ he writes, contemplating the pitfalls of memory. ‘Was it me? Have I not confused my memories with someone else’s? And thus everything that has happened a single time in eternity, and then never again. Never more! The first-last kisses, the primultime meeting. An eternal doubt will surround what never was repeated in its shroud of uncertainty.’

…

If Michèle Noiret has chosen La primultime rencontre as the title of this choreography that Bernard Foccroulle invited her to write in this so exceptional of locations, it is especially because she was interested in contemplating those moments that only occur a single time, that pass and disappear for ever… These meetings that are both the first and the last, and that do not return. Or at least so it is believed, because reading Alberto Manguel, the meetings that do not occur are the ones that seem doomed to repeat themselves endlessly.

For the dance, the choreographer has decided to play with the location by preserving its magic, its light and its lived-in silence, with the exception of a moment when the music of Henry Purcell, Music for a While, resonates with the sounds of nature. This unique framework inspires flowing body movements. The choreographic composition is based on the principles of circular figures, especially the figure 8. The fleetingness of movement is crucial here. The audience, arranged in a circle around the stage, surround the dance and create an imaginary space that the body can inhabit and fill with its presence. How is it possible, in this regard, not to think of that other space imagined by Alberto Manguel: the mysterious plain of souls Néstor Fabris visits at the end of A Return, in which all the memories he wanted to forget and that, paradoxically, he values most preciously, materialise once again before him.

This type of space and imaginary presence, halfway between dream and reality, has always set Michèle Noiret in motion. Here she creates a solo marked by a remarkable meeting.

La primultime rencontre - 2010

Teaser

Press

The festival of Belgians in the South
" A very large number of Belgians are in Provence in summer. While many of them are tourists, many artists come to present their work. Actors, dancers, photographers, visual artists are much in evidence.
Provence, Belgian province? During the summer the accents of Liege, Antwerp, Namur, Brussels and Ghent reverberate throughout the south of France. But in Provence, our compatriots also fill stages, podiums, exhibition spaces. In Aix-en-Provence, directed for several seasons now by a certain Bernard Foccroulle, still as creative as he was at La Monnaie, Sophie Karthäuser is perfect in Pygmalion […] staged by Trisha Brown. A few days earlier, the dancer and choreographer Michèle Noiret had already won over the audience with a solo in the open air. Created at the request of Bernard Foccroulle, La primultime rencontre delighted the audience rediscovering the pastoral Grand Saint Jean site."

Jean-Marie Wynants, Le Soir, July 2010

Michèle Noiret’s fragile and fluid solo
"Earlier in the evening, movement also manages to transport the spectator to a world of pure emotion. In the Sous-bois, transformed into a circular stage under the trees, the choreographer and dancer Michèle Noiret offered a fragile, fluid solo in which gesture first embraces silence, quivering to the enigmatic sound of a halo of notes and murmurs, before unfurling into the wonderful Music for a While, homage paid by Henry Purcell to life-giving music… A fleeting instance of magic, yet leaving in our memory its restless mark."

Emmanuelle GIULIANI, www.la-Croix.com, July 2010

The best of this Voyage artistique is no doubt Michèle Noiret’s choreographic solo, La Primultime rencontre. In the Sous-bois of the Domaine, a circular stage lends itself to a subtle and sensual, disturbing dance. Michèle Noiret teaches us to dance a cappella again, a body language that speaks for itself and sculpts silence and its minimal reliefs. In this resonant asceticism, the concentration is stimulated and stirred by the smallest cicada, the faintest rustle of foliage, the faintest patter of feet on the stage; answering burgeoning gestures, daring or not daring, seemingly measuring the space around the body. As a product of the place and the words danced there, the music emerges from white noise – Music for a While distorted by memory, first phantom then corporeal – before burying itself again, like noise will return to silence and silence to the forest. A dance in which the look is as important as the body – especially when Michèle Noiret gazes straight into the camera, completely unmasked. A very singular moment which wins her alone the prize of this Voyage in the Grand Saint-Jean, nevertheless uneven, this year."

Chantal Cazaux, www.asopera.fr, July 2010

Headed to the Sous-bois to see La primultime rencontre, a solo conceived and danced by Michèle Noiret, a very strong moment when the body, on a circular wooden stage, murmurs or shouts in the silence, questioning, calling witness, bawling the spectator over with the intensity of the look – only in the final minutes does Purcell’s Music for a While mingle gently with the sounds of nature."

Didier van Moere, ConcertoNet.com, July 2010

Cast & credits

Scenic writing, choreography and interpretation Michèle Noiret
Sound mixed by Michèle Noiret et Jean-Christophe Scottis
With an extract of Music for a while by Henry Purcell (interpreted by Alfred Deller)
Costumes Azniv Afsar
Photography Elizabeth Carecchio
Duration 16 minutes

Executive producer Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.

The Compagnie Michèle Noiret is subsidized by Le Ministère de la Communauté française Wallonie-Bruxelles, Service de la Danse and receives the regular help of Wallonie-Bruxelles International (WBI). Michèle Noiret is member of the Académie royale de Belgique.

Touring

4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 12th, 13th, 15th and 17th July 2010 Grand Saint Jean / Festival d'Aix en Provence - Aix-en-Provence (F)