title : Isadora Duncan (2019)

concept : Jérôme Bel
choreography : Isadora Duncan 
with : Elisabeth Schwartz, and, in alternance, Sheila Atala, Chiara Gallerani, Jérôme Bel

 duration : approx 60 minutes 

production : R.B. Jérôme Bel
coproduction : La Commune centre dramatique national d’Aubervilliers, Les Spectacles Vivants - Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Festival d’Automne à Paris, R.B. Jérôme Bel (Paris), Tanz im August/ HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen)
with the support of : CND Centre National de la Danse (Pantin) in the frame of its residency program, MC93 (Bobigny),  Ménagerie de Verre (Paris) in the framework of Studiolab, for providing studio spaces

R.B Jérôme Bel is supported by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d'Ile-de-France, French Ministry for Culture.
Jérôme Bel est associated artist to Le Quartz – scène nationale de Brest and to Centre national de la danse (Pantin).

R.B. Jérôme Bel :
artistic advice and executive direction : Rebecca Lasselin
production manager : Sandro Grando
website : www.jeromebel.fr

With this piece devised for Elizabeth Schwartz, Jérôme Bel is continuing his series of portraits of dancers, which he embarked upon in 2004, focusing on the figure of one of her specialities, Isadora Duncan. Unlike Véronique Doisneau, Cédric Andrieux and Pichet Klunchun and myself, Jérôme Bel here, for the first time, draws the portrait of  a deceased choreographer, based on her autobiographical work, Ma Vie [My Life]. Jérôme Bel discovers, beneath the romantic figure, a visionary choreographer who, through her great freedom of expression, favouring spontaneity and naturalness, provided the bases of modern dance, which in turn lie at the root of contemporary dance. Mixing discursive and sensitive styles, spoken moments and danced solos, the performance brings to life the memory of free dance, by associating choreographic know-how with the spectacle experience. When linked with Jérôme Bel’s concerns about dance as a lever of emancipation, Isadora Duncan’s teaching, rekindled here, makes it possible to assert the topical nature of her critical potential. For ecological reasons, R.B/ Jérôme Bel company doesn't travel by plane anymore. A version of the piece is  created in New York, by teleconference, with the dancer Catherine Gallant.

Florian Gaité, for the Festival d’Automne à Paris, 2019