RÉPÉTITIONS

director's note

I wanted to seize the moment when a group creates a unique collective intelligence. I didn’t know much about the choreography before I’ve filmed it, I just knew that it was the 1st day of a long process for those artists, I wanted to be there, when the choreographer and the dancers would start their creative process to translate conceptual proposals into movements. Their start was the best moment for me to start my own process as well.

We’ve created a context where she, the dancers and me would be at work. A context where « we » would be the subject. Mary had the real purpose to create a dance show (it was the 1st day of many days of rehearsal), and mine was to shoot a film in two hours. I consider the moment of filming just like any moment of our lives where different layers of reality coexist, and sometimes collide. When I film, I try not to choose too carefully what I put in my basket, focusing on some key elements and letting other layers of reality out of my control, considering them as surprising elements of a balanced ecosystem.

I’m just there in the middle, aware that this reality is bigger than what I can perceive, and trying not to spoil that reality so that I can use it much better at editing.

When comes the moment of the editing, I discover the images, I also discover the sounds. I try focus on specific points in order to create a poetical tension, dramaturgical dynamics, and letting some interferences opening perspectives for the spectators so that they can find their own way to make my story theirs.