Cast
Maguy Marin — Choreographer
Ulises Alvarez
Préciosa Gil
Kerrie Hartley-Szuch
Mychel Lecoq
Bastien Parnasse
Thierry Partaud
Program notes
Born in Toulouse in 1951, Maguy Marin acquired her dancing training in the Toulouse Conservatoire and then in Strasbourg. In 1970, she entered the Mudra school, created by Maurice Béjart in Brussels. The school was created by the choreographer in order to work in collaboration with his troop, the Ballet du XXe siècle. Maguy Marin left Béjart's school after three years, and entered the Ballet du XXe siècle, in which she will be a soloist for 4 seasons.
With Béjart, she could try her hand at choreography. When she received a prize at the Concours chorégraphique international de Bagnolet in 1978, her work as a choreographer became recognized. The same year she founded with Daniel Ambash the Theatre de l'Arche which became the Maguy Marin Company in 1984 then the National Choreography Center in 1989. Influenced by Pina Bausch's Tanztheater movement, her choreographies are full of non theatrical or musical elements which do not belong exclusively to dance as we can see in Ram Dam, her creation presented in this documentary.
In this movie, she talks about her conception of dancing, which is a tool of exploration of everything human. She tries to go beyond the rules set by ballet dancing or contemporary dancing : "If dance had satisfied me, I would be a dancer now. I'd be an old dancer!" This documentary juxtaposes images from her show Ram Dam and from the rehearsals with very personal interviews of the choreographer.
Since this documentary, Maguy Marin received the American Dance Festival Award in 2003 and the Bessie Award in 2008.