Dominique Bagouet

“The basic driver is desire,” Dominique Bagouet liked to say. So Schnell is not only a masterly work but also a testament, presented at the Opéra de Paris two months before the artist’s death. His choreographic urgency moulded a dance that is relentless, vigorous, headstrong, joyful, furious, fluid and tenacious. It is this energy, and the written gems that it created, which fed into Catherine Legrand’s desire to bring this piece back to life, in line with Les Carnets Bagouet. Among the thirteen male and female dancers, there is a mix of generations and it is moving to see again some of the performers who took part in the piece’s premiere in 1990. Created for the inauguration of the vast stage of the Corum in Montpellier, So Schnell came charged with great promise thanks to "this large spatial fabric, bearing lines, points and counterpoints" and was elaborated using a weft of meticulous writing. Buoyed up by the energy of Bach’s cantata, Dominique Bagouet turned essentially to play. The rush becomes headlong and the dance, now pugnacious, breathy, flowing, burning, makes its marks lastingly.