OUT OF WALLS – Paris Opera
Creation for 22 students of 6th, as part of the educational program “10 months of school and opera” at the Opéra Bastille Amphitheatre.
“Outside the walls” for me is the testimony of a choreographic adventure both cultural, educational and human. As a dancer of the Ballet of the Paris Opera, I have the chance to dance the great classical ballets as much as contemporary creations. With the help of Cécile Thiel-Mourad, my assistant, I had at heart to pass my experience on a choreographic piece in three parts. As a passage from darkness to light, a sensitive dialogue between Bach and Pärt. With the 24 students of Noisy-le-Sec, I wanted to share a common space where could circulate ideas and desires of everyone in the wake of the knowledge acquired during the year. Each session begins with a warm-up protocol to the floor and in the middle; ensuing improvisation workshops led to develop fluency in space, where each one then calls his own creativity. Throughout the sessions, we sought to discover with students a sharable body language and we made the bet not to circumvent the difficulties. Thus, it is indeed written by movements of a “choreo-graphy”, consisting of solos, duets and group movements. Many issues are at the heart of this artistic approach, both political and social. Indeed, at an age when everything is under construction, how to bring students of 6th to be full participants in the dialogue? How to lead them to become aware of their own bodies in space and to understand the other’s? And to know how better let go for dancing together? Many small revolutions that cause them to think differently about what surrounds them, to put into perspective their discoveries, and more, to discover “what moves them,” like Pina Bausch said, rather than how to move. Because there has something here of the order of self development, elevation of body and mind that is played through the practice of dance. Always needs courage to throw his body into battle. But dance is beautiful when it comes from the heart. I like to think that if students do not continue to dance at the end of this course, all of this unique experience will keep a special sensitivity and some knowledge of this living artistic heritage. With the secret ambition that some can develop some of these “miraculous weapons” mentioned by the poet Aimé Césaire, to live their lives outside the walls. »
- Conference danced at Sciences-Po:
As part of the Week of Arts at Sciences-Po, Sébastien Bertaud (also a graduate of the Master of Arts and political from S.Po) presented “Beyond the Walls” his contribution to the educational program “10 months of school and opera “for 24 young students from priority education zones who discover dance at the Paris Opera on a 10-month period from September 2012 to June 2013.
