Béatrice Massin

Born out of research on the French musical forms of the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Abaca is inspired by the rules of the rondeau – and its alternation of couplets and choruses which recalls the songs of our childhood – to compose a subtle and joyful ode to the lightness of being. A group of four performers (one woman and three men) explores a series of choreographic humors. Between the different sequences, a door is moved on stage all along the show and it opens on different imaginary landscapes. Music, light and the cold or warm colors of the costumes contribute to making each situation a fecund space where dance, enriched by the complicity between the four performers, keeps reinventing itself. Although it follows a defined structure, the piece awakens a desire to play in the pure spirit of entertainment that was central to the baroque aesthetics. It is a contemporary version of the “fêtes galantes” after which Béatrice Massin’s company was named.

Originally trained in contemporary dance, Béatrice Massin is now one of the leading figures in Baroque dance. Her company Fêtes galantes was founded in 1993, and one of its specificities is to combine the choreographic codes of contemporary dance with the Baroque legacy of a musical architecture of movement. She choreographed Que ma joie demeure and, more recently, Offrande and MASS B, and she developed a pedagogical center, L’Atelier baroque, as well as the Fabrique des écritures, for which she is collaborating with two artists, Mickaël Phelippeau for the project named Lou and Gaëlle Bourges for Loulou (la petite pelisse).