Mickaël Phelippeau

The origin of Lou lies in the encounter between the choreographer Mickaël Phelippeau, whose bi-portraits have gradually turned his choreographic project into a tool for studying intersubjectivity, and Béatrice Massin, whose Fêtes Galantes promotes the renaissance of baroque dance. Lou is Lou Cantor, a young performer, trained by Béatrice Massin since her childhood. Consistent with his approach favouring the individual, dialogue and evolving practices, Mickaël Phelippeau conceived this portrait as a levelling: a blank page, allowing for a comprehension of Lou Cantor’s apprenticeship in dance, alongside the trajectory leading from the birth of a gesture to its being put into action. In this way, each element in space – the score, steps, music, costumes –put back together a piece of the enigma: what links an individual with their practice? With Lou, the pleasure of precisely placing each gesture – the position of the feet, the legs, arms and hands – emphasises the basic dimension which is at play: with different versions of Aria della Folia, space and motion become structured, sketching out in the background the story of a body being constructed by baroque dance, from childhood to adulthood.