BE MOVED - OTHERWISE WE ARE LOST
Paris, October 2023
“I’m not so interested in how they move as in what moves them.” That’s what Pina Bausch – the late German contemporary dancer and choreographer – used to say about her dancers.
Famously known for her approach to dance theatre, Pina’s work continues to inspire many artists such as the French dancer and filmmaker ADRIEN DANTOU, who keeps turning dance from a physical performance into a space for exploration where gestures meet words, emotions and images. Trained as a dancer and passionate about cinema, Adrien is well known for the short films he shares on social media, as well as the multidisciplinary nature of the projects he develops. Whether dancing or making people dance, being on stage or directing films, Adrien is constantly looking for different “states of bodies” to interpret, for stories to be told and for “bringing out the singular character of each person”. To be moved and to embody, is his ultimate goal because, as Bausch once said, “otherwise we are lost”.
How did you start to connect dancing, image and video, following your studies at the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et de Danse de Paris?
I was already working on visual projects when I was still at the CNMD, and I made my first short film when I was 18 with my old flatmates. While I was still studying, a choreographer asked me to do a piece with him. So, I was able to work quite naturally straight after graduating. I then went to New York City for a month and met the French dancer and choreographer Benjamin Millepied. We became friends and started working together, first in NYC and then in Paris when he was the director of L’Opéra de Paris. I’ve always been passionate about cinema and wanted to go into that. Because I’m a dancer, it was pretty easy for me to get opportunities to film dance. During the lockdown, I went back to my parents’ house in the countryside of France. I really started filming myself at this moment, dancing in the fields, with my father or in other situations. These little films were basically tests, then I just continued to develop them. Some media contacted me and I started making films with DUST Magazine for example. After the lockdown, I also started working with the painter Caroline Denervaud. She put a canvas on the floor, I danced and she painted at the same time. I made microfilms of it, then it became a live performance. There have been other projects I’ve been part of, like the Carte Blanche “Louis 200” offered to 200 artists to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the death of Louis Vuitton. It all came together quite fluidly.
It’s quite impressive. I do a lot of dance myself and I find it fascinating to see how working with the body can create links with many different mediums. Nowadays, dance comes in all sorts of forms and moves us in so many ways.
Exactly, dance is everywhere and increasingly so. It’s strange to say this, but I’m not a fan of dance. I love dance, it’s my whole life, but what I enjoy the most is cinema. Dance has opened me up to a lot of things, particularly to the work of Pina Bausch which mixes theatre and dance in such a beautiful way. I think cinema can sometimes be too concrete within enough abstraction, while dance can sometimes be too abstract with a lack of emotions. This meeting of abstraction and emotions moves me a lot in the work of Pina and other choreographers such as Maguy Marin, or even in some of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s very abstract pieces, precisely because there’s strength in abstraction that you don’t find elsewhere. It’s this abstraction that I like to incorporate into more “narrative” films.
I know exactly what you mean! Pina Bausch is obviously one of the greatest references. It’s funny that you mention Maguy Marin because May-B is one of the pieces that has had the biggest impact on me. There’s indeed a meeting of narrative and abstraction from which emanates something of human vulnerability that deeply moved me.
That’s the beauty of dance, mixing narrative and abstraction without having to justify everything. What moves me most is when movement enters the cinema and brings about this abstraction. Like the last gesture of the boy’s hand in Death in Venice by Visconti, or when the boy takes the father’s feet and puts them on his shoulders in Teorema by Pasolini. Tsai Ming-liang is actually my favourite director because bodies are so present in his films. I’m not interested in movement per se or in technical performance. I like when bodies tell a story while retaining a form of abstraction.
Speaking of technique, do you tend to improvise?
I only do improvisation, both in my performances and in my films. When I dance, I try to embody a character, to put myself in the shoes of a geek or someone who talks nonsense, for example. I try to find the bodies of these characters. This gives rise to movements that are not about demonstration but more about embodying a state of being.
Improvisation opens up an incredible freedom of exploration. When I discovered improvisation in contemporary dance, particularly with Ohad Naharin’s Gaga dance, it enabled me to see dance not just as a physical performance but as a very inner and, as you say, embodied search. When you make projects or videos, how do you deal with improvisation?
I get people to improvise, even in my films. I try to create a framework within which I let people evolve while guiding them. I had the amazing opportunity to work with Raimund Hoghe, Pina Bausch’s dramaturge. He was a short, hunchbacked man who spoke of his body as an unusual poetic landscape, which I found magnificent. Raimund has never choreographed, yet his pieces are very recognisable. We used to arrive at rehearsals straight into costume, lights already set up, he would put on music and we improvised on it. He never said what movements to make, he just created a space in which to evolve. It wasn’t about performative dance but about presence. I have inherited a lot from his approach. I work a lot with music and create spaces in which people can enter a certain state and be carried away. I also do this with people who aren’t dancers, like my family.
What is it like doing it with people who aren’t used to dancing?
For me, it’s almost the same. I know how dancers move and I can choose a person for the way they embody something. I don’t care about “beautiful” dancers if what they do doesn’t tell me anything. Dancer or not, it’s all about bringing out the singular character of each person. With non-dancers, you sometimes come across a very touching sincerity. There’s also a certain symbolism when I do this with my family. The film I made with my father where we’re facing each other, holding hands, and he’s carrying me, tells a different story than if I did it with someone else. There are also films I make with people I have a specific connection with, like photographer Malick Bodian. We just put the camera down and have fun improvising. We made a film in which we’re dancing a waltz and telling each other about a crush we had. One of my latest films, in which I eat matches, is about the pain I felt regarding a story with someone. It’s a bit like hidden signs. [Laughs]
Hidden signs that you post on social networks. Not so hidden anymore. [Laughs]
Yes, but it’s so transformed. What interests me most in the end is the film that results from the crush I may have had. It’s about taking an inner feeling and putting it into movement and images. In fact, I started posting my short films on Instagram because it takes a lot of time to get films selected at festivals. I had those little films, so why not share them? Instagram is perhaps not the right place for that, but at the same time, if it can reach more people, why not?
I totally agree. Besides all these short films, what other projects are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on writing several films, both short and long ones, and I’m going to work on Bertrand Bonello’s new production which will be presented at La Philharmonie de Paris in January 2024. There will be 300 musicians and 2 actors/ dancers on stage, the actress Julia Faure and me. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a project in which I had to propose something in dance that wasn’t my own. I hope I’ll be up to the challenge. [Laughs] I’ve always had a lot of stage fright before going on stage.
I think it’s pretty normal to have stage fright when you have to perform in front of the public. There’s something quite vulnerable about using your body on stage, it can be a real exposure.
That’s for sure! For me, it depends on the context. If it’s a show directed by someone else, I’m more afraid of disappointing this person. When I do my own performance, I can be very scared, but once I’m in it, I feel protected. Movement and interpretation protect me. Do you know that feeling you get during improvisation, of sometimes being inside your body and sometimes not at all? When you’re not there at all you can feel very vulnerable, but when you are really there, the story you tell yourself kind of protects you from the public’s gaze. When you’re in-between it’s really hard. And if you don’t get into it at all, it’s hell.
I know exactly what you mean. It’s all about entering into the story you’re telling and feeling deeply connected to what you’re doing.
Yes, and it’s the same when I’m watching a show. You were talking about Ohad Naharin earlier. I think that some of the pieces he does with the Batsheva Dance Company are very powerful because movements come from Israel’s history or actual context and express something about that. The work of Hofesh Shechter is also very powerful in that sense. I can be completely carried away when I’m facing their work.
This brings us to the question “Is the body political?”. Ohad Naharin and Hofesh Hester have created very politicized pieces, as have many choreographers and artists. What do you think of the “political body”?
First of all, what does the word “political” mean? That’s a very philosophical question. I don’t consider that I do political things, but I do believe that certain choices lead to a certain bias. I don’t think I make anything that is politically biased. For example, if I make a film about the fact that I had a crush on a guy, it’s not a film about the fact that I’m gay, it’s a film about a love story. At the same time, by pretending that this isn’t a subject, isn’t it becoming political? I don’t know. Making it banal makes it human. Showing different bodies, different people from a very human angle, that’s the bias. For me, it’s all about showing humanity as it is, in all its forms. I don’t really like making claims, I’m more in favour of showing things in a simple and sincere way without making a subject of it.
I think that’s a beautiful message to end on!
Interview by Hanna Pallot
Photography by Ritchie Jo Espenilla