Répertoire Xavier Le Roy

This is not a concept

11 > 29.03.19

CN D Pantin

Named after one of the pieces on the programme, This is not a Concept brings together nine pieces by Xavier Le Roy, providing just as many ways for him to depict himself, and his ironical approach to the conceptual reach of his work. In this way, the choice of performances and projects focuses on reflections about the metamorphoses of the body, the physicality of sound and group work, while waving away any suspicion of intellectualising dance, to the point of reducing it to being just an idea. Thus, an initial phase brings together two signature pieces – Self Unfinished (1998), Produit de circonstances – the first in the choreographer’s repertoire, to which will be added Produit d’autres circonstances, created twenty years later, in which Xavier Le Roy extended his autobiographical quest through the experience of the Other. Here, his work returns to two of his basics: the criticism of depiction and musicality. There is an even greater examination of music in the second sequence of the programme with Le Sacre du Printemps and Salut für Caudwell, two pieces that work on the synchronisation of seeing and hearing. Accustomed to group work, Xavier Le Roy will finally be offering during the Open Weekend: Temporary Title (2015), with artists who regularly accompany him, and Still Untitled, bringing in those who want to take part in the courses on offer before and during this repertoire. The programme will close with Sans Titre (2014), a piece which is as performative as it is discursive and which critiques the norms of scenic performance, while leaving a question in suspense: if it is not a concept, what in the end is Xavier Le Roy’s works’ name?

Holding a PhD in molecular biology, Xavier Le Roy started a career as a performer, then choreographer in the 1990s. As artist in residence at the Podewil (Berlin) from 1996 to 2003, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, USA) in 2010 and at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale (Paris) from 2012 to 2015, he is recognised for his critical and experimental approach to dance. Developed at the core of an open and reticular quest, it examines the lines of sharing between objects and subjects, the animal and the human, the machine and the natural body, individual gestures and collective actions, or else public sites and private places. His solo works test out the limitations of the choreographic field, and of the body on the stage and its actions, as in Self Unfinished (1998), Produit de circonstances (1999), Le Sacre du Printemps (2007), Produit d’autres circonstances (2009) or Sans Titre (2014). As for his group pieces, such as E.X.T.E.N.S.I.O.N.S. (1999-2000), 6 Mois 1 Lieu (2008) and low pieces (2011), they focus on the conditions of production and the relational dynamics pertaining to a group. Solicited by art centres throughout the world, Xavier Le Roy initiated in 2010 projects which are specifically thought out for exhibition spaces, in particular for the Fundació Tapiès of Barcelona (Retrospective), the Centre Pompidou in Paris or the John Kaldor Public Art Project in Sydney (Temporary Title, 2015). For the Skulptur Projekte Münster in 2017, he collaborated with Scarlet Yu so as to imagine a piece in the public space (Still Untitled). Since 2018, he has taught at the Institut für Angewandte Theaterwissenschaft of Giessen in Germany.