Photo : Jean-Pierre Couderc / L'Express
Version française
BIOGRAPHY
It was in Lyon, in 1978, that Régine Chopinot founded the Compagnie du Grèbe - which combined dancers, actors, musicians - and signed her first ballets : Le Jardin de Pierres, Ma Grand’mère Hippocampe, etc. Having been renamed Compagnie Chopinot in 1980, the company won a prize at the Bagnolet Contest in 1981 for Halley’s Comet, and has since then punctuated the “jeune danse française” scene regularly with astonishing creations. From the head-on Appel d’Air to Rossignol, an aerial ballet that inaugurated in its days in contemporary dance the performance of dancers hanged from cables, the unclassifiable art of Régine Chopinot shoves and seduces. Le Défilé, which is now an indisputable reference in terms of the link between dance and fashion, is the fruit of her faithful collaboration with Jean-Paul Gaultier, who signed all the costumes for her creations from 1983 to 1993.
In 1986, Régine Chopinot settled down in La Rochelle and was appointed manager of the Centre Chorégraphique National Poitou-Charentes. Dividing her time between tours and création, she reexamined boxing and found herself behind the ropes of a boxing ring for KOK. In 1991, seducted by the modernity of Romanesque shapes, the choreographer looked into the life within them. Guided by distinguished art historian Jurgis Baltrusaîtis, she signed St.Georges, one of her masterpieces.
In 1993, she redefined the missions of her company, which was renamed Ballet Atlantique and became a national contemporary ballet dedicated to creation and repertoire, not only in the service of her work but also open to other choreographers. Doing so, she confronted her dancers with other worlds of choreography through the creation of Richard Alston’s Marteau sans Maître on the work of Pierre Boulez, or through the revival of Dominique Bagouet’s Saut de l’ange. Régine Chopinot’s collaboration with renowned artists, such as Jean Le Gac for Façade in 1993 and Andy Goldsworthy for Végétal in 1995, or with talented musicians sharing the scene with her dancers, as in the Soli-Bach, illustrates her genuine open-mindedness towards all other artistic fields. Végétal, her latest creation, which exudes a demanding simplicity, is a living meditation on time, the time of earth , seeds, roots, branches and leaves.
In June 1996, Régine Chopinot created Paroles du Feu in La Rochelle to original music by the French Vietnamese composer Tôn-Thât Tiêt. Based on the relationship to a remarkable architectural space - la Chapelle Fromentin, the Ballet Atlantique¹s place of work - this piece focuses on the dialogue between dance and the elements. For the time being, Régine Chopinot is working on The Four Seasons , which will be created in La Rochelle in Febrary 1998.
Address : 4, rue Saint-Jean du Pérot - 17025 La Rochelle Cedex 1 - France
Phone : 05 46 41 17 75 / Fax : 05 46 41 07 28
Email : regine.chopinot@wanadoo.fr
Copyright©1996 ARTOTAL