Les porteurs d’ombre
Les porteurs d’ombre is a company under the law of 1901, created at the initiative of the choreographer Dominique Brun.
The company takes its name from a phrase written by the celebrated painter, plasticien and homme de lettres, Marcel Duchamp: the “anonymous society of the porteurs d’ombre [shadow bearers] is represented by every source of light (the sun, the moon, the stars, candles, fire - )”; artists are the “porteurs d’ombre who work in the infra-mine”. The choice of les porteurs d’ombres as the name of the company confirms the idea that the company wishes to consign its projects to Duchamp’s omnipresent modernity, a modernity concerned with time and speed. It is a study of movement.
The company is dedicated to the rediscovery of our choreographic and musical heritage, not from the point of view of a museum, but by developing the relationship between the available archives and today’s performers. It promotes the use of Kinetography Laban (a type of dance notation system), but also of numerous sources and archives (scores, photographs and period films, literary texts, sketches, notes, etc.) All this allows us to understand and revive past, and often forgotten, writings. It looks at works from the past through a decidedly contemporary lens and tries to give them visibility at the end of an interpretative work. The company does not try to “reconstruct” (a vain temptation) the works, but to “reinvent” them. It is committed to the constitution of an ad-hoc and necessarily temporary “us”, which nevertheless seeks to constantly define the conditions of possibilities of being together.
The company Les porteurs d’ombre is supported by Le Ministère de la Culture / DRAC Île-de-France as an approved company, and by the Île-de-France region as l’Aide à la creation et de la Permanence Artistique et Culturelle.
Dominique Brun
Performer and choreographer, Dominique Brun co-founded the company La Salamandre (1980 to 1988). Together they came third at the international competition of Bagnolet (1981), “Le Ballet pour demain”. She also co-founded Quatuor Albrecht Knust (1994 to 2003), with whom she worked on recreating dances from the historical repertoire from scores established in Labanotation. After Quatuor Albrecht Knust dissolved, Dominique Brun created Siléo (2004) from a text by Wajdi Mouawad and dances from the interwar period by Valeska Gert, Kurt Jooss, Dore Hoyer, Doris Humphrey, Mary Wigman.
In 2007, Dominique Brun produced a pedagogical DVD dedicated to L’Après-midi d’un faune [The Afternoon of a Faun] (1912) by Naslav Nijinsky. On Jan Kounen’s invitation, she refashioned extracts of Sacre du printemps [The Rite of Spring] (1913; Nijinsky), from the period’s archives, for the film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravnisky (2010).
Supported by L’Association du 48, directed by the dancer and choreographer Sylvain Prunenec, she extended her research on the Sacre through a diptych: Sacre #197 (2012) and Sacre #2 (2014). She concluded this cycle of work dedicated to Nijinsky with the creation of Jeux – Trois études pour sept petits paysages aveugles (2017). Next came Les Perles ne font pas le collier, a piece she co-signed and danced with Sylvain Prunenec (2018). Most recently, she has created Le Poids des choses & Peter and the Wolf (2019), her first performance choreographed for children as well as adults, basing it on Rudolf Laban’s Effort system.
In parallel to her research on movement, Dominique Brun has developed a distinct artistic taste for the relationship between music and dance. In 2016, the meeting with the orchestra Les Siècles (under the direction of François-Xavier Roth) led to the Philharmonie de Paris and Les porteurs d’ombre sharing a stage for the Hommage à Nijinski project, which toured as far as China.
Dominique Brun is now working on two major works by Bronislava Nijinska. Her rereading of Les Noces and Un Bolero led her to a choreographic, dramaturgical, and musical interpretation. The future of Les Noces and Un Bolero lies between tradition and interpretation; between written works and choreographic invention; in the metamorphosis and dance.
La Minute du spectateur, produced by La Maison de la Danse de Lyon invites you to discover Dominique Brun in two minutes by exploring her vocabulary and her works.
Among our artistic collaborations…
Les Siècles
Created in 2003 by conductor François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles is an orchestra that puts several centuries of musical creation into perspective in a relevant and unexpected way. Unique in the world, Les Siècles brings together musicians from a new generation, playing each repertoire on the appropriate historical instruments.
Ensemble AEDES
Founded in 2005 by Mathieu Romano, the Ensemble Aedes is devoted to performing both familiar and less-known choral music from the last five centuries, including premieres of new works. It stands out in original programmes in the form of its staged performances, collaborations with actors and plasticiens, and forays into other musical genres such as French song.
Odile Blanchard / Atelier devineau
Odile Blanchard has been a set designer, painter, and the head decorator at the Devineau studio since 1996. She has produced paintings, sculpture, materials for opera sets, theatre, and fashion shows. She has collaborated with Dominique Brun since 2014, when she worked on the paintings for Sacre #2. They worked together again in 2019 for Le Poids des choses & Peter and the Wolf, and then again in 2020 for the production of Nijinska | Voilà la femme.
Coming soon: presentation of performers, artists and artistic collaborators ...
