Cannes Dance Festival: November 19-24

The Biannual Dance Festival in Cannes is a week-long event which enjoys an extra touch of glamour in the wake of the Cannes film festival.

By ORA BRAFMAN
ballet dancers (photo credit: Olivier H.)
ballet dancers
(photo credit: Olivier H.)
The Biannual Dance Festival in Cannes is a week-long event which enjoys an extra touch of glamour in the wake of the Cannes film festival. The current edition was directed by Frederic Flamand, the highly regarded choreographer and artistic director of the national ballet company of Marseilles.
Reconstructing his iconic piece Titanic was one of the more ambitious projects, and the central attraction of this edition.
The other two focal points, main anchors of the program, were the French premiere of Marie Chouinard’s 24 Preludes by Chopin, and Henri Michaux: Movements.
The first, fragmented structurally, was an incredibly beautiful reverberation of the music, yet offered ingenious and strong movement syntax to match. The second, based on ink drawings of French poet H. Michaux, was quite intricate, as Chouinard insisted on presenting all 64 drawings of his book, or so it seemed.
It took 12 musicians, mostly drummers, to play Steve Reich Drumming. Percussion group Ictus played the incredibly difficult piece live on stage for the Rosas dance company run by Teresa De Keersmaeker, one of contemporary dance luminaries.
The mesmerizing Drumming with its demanding precision and hypnotic excitation, met the experienced, limber dancers of Rosas, a clash of two artistic spheres, which met yet didn’t combust.
Among the couple of dozen other dance events, we spotted the almost inevitable Israeli connection. Watching Black Pulp by Martin Harriague, I was struck by the sensation of watching familiar material, which brought to mind some Gaga, familiar gestures with a touch of Batsheva and Sharon Eyal. In short, Israeli flair. Harriague, it turned out, is currently dancing with KCDC, the Kibbutz company, and two out his four of his dancers – Shai Partosh (ex-KCDC) and Amir Rappaport – are Israelis who met each other in Holland.
Sharon Fridman’s piece brought him a rare standing ovation, from an audience taken by the vitality, virtuosity and freshness of his duet Al Manos dos Caras. Sharon, who is based in Madrid, was invited for the first time to work with an Israeli company, an offer every Israeli artist abroad aspires to receive.