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Listening and Metamorphosis in the Choreographic Work “Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights” (2016): an Interview with Dancer Valeria Galluccio (Compagnie Marie Chouinard)

 
This interview forms part of the data I collected for my PhD thesis, entitled Moving Across Page, Stage, Canvas: Theatrical Dance as a Form of Intermedial Translation, submitted in 2022. Interviews with dancers and choreographers formed an important part of the material I gathered and worked on, which also included participant observations, newspaper and magazine articles, attendance to live performances and rehearsals. In February 2020 I was invited to go to Montreal to study the work of Marie Chouinard, whose choreography Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights (2016), was one of my two case studies. Within two weeks from my arrival, a national lockdown was called to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, preventing me from attending the company’s rehearsal and to visit their archive. Nonetheless, I managed to encounter some of the dancers and the music composer – the following interview resulted from my stay in Montreal.

I met Valeria on June 19th, 2020, at Parc la Fontaine, Montreal. She had just called me to ask if we can postpone our interview by an hour, as she needed to consult the Italian embassy to know if she would be able to go to Italy and teach at the Biennale Dance College the following week. The stay-at-home order by the Canadian government had been loosened in stages—people had been allowed to meet in open spaces since May but restaurants, shopping centers and museums would only open the following week. At the time, Valeria was working on a dance film shot in the woods, entitled Sur la Lame, and the Compagnie Marie Chouinard was having their first online performance in 10 days. There was a tender, tentative atmosphere of things beginning again, encouraged by the warm summery weather after the harsh winter inside. When Valeria arrived, she sat down next to me and showed a flyer of the performance she brought with herself “so that I leave you with something”. She asked me about myself and my research and seemed interested in finding connections between her work and translation.

Valeria speaks fast and with passion, in an Italian interpolated by English and French words that reveal her inhabiting of different languages (the translation into English is mine and has been revised and approved by Valeria). She pointed at the flyer and explained…

 

 

Valeria: This is pèlerinage. How did we create it? Let me see, it is in one of the images. We worked with a big tableau. She had it printed out very big, then we went to watch it at the museum Prado and the original painting is so small! So, one of the sequences is called pèlerinage. One of the keys of Marie’s choreographic language in Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights is the accumulation; for example, if there are two characters, she multiplies them until there are four, five, all embodying the same image.

Vanessa: Like in last part, Paradise, when there’s two of you and then the rest?

Valeria: Yes, that is the way she works in the third act of the piece. She takes an image and duplicates it, triplicated and son on. For the creation of unisons of the first act, she asked us to choose an image that we liked from the tableau and then create a movement phrase with it. Then she chose two or three phrases and assembled them, modifying them a bit, so the resulting piece would be homogeneous. And from one person dancing these movement phrases, it became all of us. She uses the concept of the extension of the painting into space. She works a lot with prostheses and elements that extend the peripheral part of the body. We can find an example of this logic in another choreography, Body Remix/Goldberg Variations (2005). In here, she does not see the pointe shoes from the perspective of ballet; she uses it as a way to walk, to move in space, something integrated within the rest of the body. The same goes for the painting. The dancers’ bodies in «Bosch» are an extension of the painting, prostheses of the image. She often uses the stage/space as an architecture. She says that the public needs to see the image, but also see the live projection in the space. The way the dancers occupy stage/space is precise. For example, a little detail, a foot on the right, a foot ten centimetres to the left, and the light shifts, the way the image is seen shifts. She has a deep visual sensitivity.

Vanessa: Is it a sort of architecture of the body?

Valeria: Often there is a reference to the architecture of the body or architecture of the space, or architecture of the thoughts. When we move from point A to point B, usually we move on a line, and rarely we go back off. When we use curves or spirals, they are to inspire in us the quality of the movements. This philosophy reflects the way people move in their own lives or do actions, for example: if you want to go up to that tree, you go straight there, you don’t need to zigzag.

Vanessa: Very interesting. But then the curves are all in the way you move your body. And I also noticed the way you move your hands, your body… I was looking at the birds outside the window and they move similarly, with jerky movements, with sudden accelerations.

Valeria: Yes, nature is a source of inspiration for Marie and us. I don’t think Marie thinks “I am going to replicate a tree”, but always in her work there are elements of animals, trees, connection to nature. For example, in Le Sacre du Printemps (1993), there is a solo of flower or a duet of flowers. She decomposes and recomposes her ideas, like a Picasso painting, it’s made of multiple layers, we can see it from different angles evolving and amplifying itself. Dancers are not just embodying a flower, we are embodying the feeling itself through imitation of the flower. In Le Sacre du Printemps, the flower’s solo only lasts twenty seconds, yet in those twenty seconds you see many different things. Marie’s talent rests in her ability to understand when an image, and the feeling behind the image, work. And then if it works on a symbolic level.

Vanessa: And when you create it, do you go through all these different layers?

Valeria: Well, she never speaks about emotions, never imposes them to us interpreters. You would not even have words for all of those feelings. But she is very intuitive, and she feels it in her body, she notices something and asks you to do it again, then she starts adjusting the movements, maybe changes the angle of inclination of your fingers, or the movement of your spine, or the way you breathe. And she knows that by doing this, she is taking you back to how you felt the first time you moved that way. She has real talent.

Vanessa: Every time you perform the same piece, are you able to access the same sensations?

Valeria: We often work with «systems of movements». In Bosch some parts are choreographed, other parts are made by «systems of movements», where we have clear indications – spacing, lighting, timing, musicality, quality of movement, all elements that are really important to frame the work. For example, I may have a solo lasting thirty seconds, knowing I must move my arms in a specific way, like in architectural way, with long and angular movements, fingers extended, legs moving on a different rhythm and change the level of the body. Everything is very well defined, but it’s up to me, the interpreter, to do ten leg movements and two arm movements or the reverse, punctuating the specifics accents on the music or just following the melody. She created the «systems of movements» because she wants to leave the dancers free. She created them for herself when she was a dancer of her solos for let herself free as well and be connected to the present moment in each show.

Vanessa: The performance is always slightly different.

Valeria: Yes, and as dancers, this gives us freedom, the performance changes with you. I am not the same person I was nine years ago. I dance the same choreographies, but the feelings are different, because I have lived through different things. My body has a memory that I carry in my dance, every day, and every time.

Vanessa: And what about the music? Do you start creating on the music?

Valeria: It depends on the choreography, but often the music arrives when we are more than mid-way through the process of creation. With Les 24 Préludes de Chopin (1999) she created the choreography on the music from the beginning. When the creation process begins in silence, it gives Marie the freedom to start from simple movement energy, without being influenced by external inputs as music. When she finalises sections, she records them and send their videos to her long-time composer and collaborator, Louis Dufort, then he starts to compose the music. Louis and Marie have been working together for over 20 years. Once we have the music, we start putting the two things together, and to look for interesting cue to dramatise the work. The way she uses music is not obvious, her research is always surprising, interesting. A good example of this is in Le Sacre du Primtemps (1993), where there are «systems of movements». Some musicals cues are set, and the dancers have to hit them, while other cues are freer. As in jazz music, in each show we can play those roles and the result will be different each time, considering that the body itself is an instrument that plays music adding to the score.

Vanessa: It is about making choices in the moment.

Valeria: Yes, it’s about being present. Perhaps like for interpreters: when they translate, they are in the present, they don’t know what the other is going to say but are ready, open, available to reproduce…

Vanessa: Carol Prieur, your colleague, was telling me about a sense of abandonment, of letting yourself get lost in something.

Valeria: Yes, loosing yourself without fear. There is always fear: fear of the unknown. But the body remembers, has a muscular memory, and it takes you back to the movement you should be doing. Perhaps not from the very beginning… it takes three or four years working with Marie to be able to let yourself go, because your body knows the movements intimately. And that is when things become fun. You surprise yourself as you dance. I had moments when I was moved, moments when I experienced grace. They are invaluable. It still gives me goosebumps. It is almost a contact with the divine. And this contact with the divine, which Marie pursues in her work, is also present in Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Vanessa: What do you feel when you dance Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights? What is your lived experience of it?

Valeria: Dancing «Bosch» for me is really dancing three interpretative energetics distinct tableaux. In the first act I interpret a solo that seems to say “this is me, I need to communicate with you, I need you, and I love you all, sitting there in front of me”. There is unconditional love in this solo, I create a connection with the public through it. Apart from that, the first act requires a lot of technical prowess. I have my own dramaturgical line, a sort of internal discourse, but there are also parts where we dance together, and I need to be careful about the spacing. It’s a mixture of being careful about what I am doing, be in connection with the group of the dancers and connecting to the public. The second act opens with long voice solo performance that I interpret. I announce to the public that hell is going to start. I leave behind the naive, joyful, pure, and innocent quality of the first act to access the darkness of the hell, to access the powerful dark side of myself, without fear or judgement. It can be scary; it was scary when I discovered this side, but it soon became fun! Marie pushed me to find all the possibilities of the extreme emotions that I can embody through the use of my voice; mad, sad, angry. She made me research those characters so obscure and absurd who communicate inside of me and outside to the public. During this solo, all the darkness is pushed to the extreme to the point that it becomes bright, interesting, funny, and clever. The second act clearly indicates a shift in the performance and this voice solo is actually a duet with the sound designer because he alters my voice, but I have to follow precise indications. Everything is so precise; it is always a negotiation between the abandonment mentioned by Carol and the attention required to fulfil the specifications. The third act is a meditative act where we multiply the images of the three main characters of this side of the tryptic. The music in this act is particularly calm, we are arriving from the hell act to the last act that is more contemplative and restorative.

Vanessa: Do you follow a specific voice training for that part?

Valeria: We have some voice coaching, how to warm up our voice, how to breathe and how to train the stamina. The solo voice in second act of Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights was created in a residency: there was a microphone on stage, I hopped on a bucket, making sounds. And Marie had a flash, she said, this is going to open the act 2. We rehearsed the sounds that she needed to hear, then she called Louis Dufort, and he gave me directions. There are so many other interesting things in this piece. For example, the characters, there is no difference in terms of gender, they are simply beings, and the white paint she uses, it’s a transposition of what we see in the painting, or the fact that she did not represent the black characters from the painting; first, she did not have black dancers at the time…

 

 

Vanessa: I was wondering about that, and how the choreography may change with time… because the dancers she worked with in 2018 are different from those she works with now.

Valeria: Yes, and the political situation is also different, and the way the audience responds to that.

Vanessa: I find this very interesting. The way black bodies represented by Bosch have been traditionally interpreted… it would be fascinating to see this dance performed today and adjusted to the dancing bodies.

Valeria: If we perform in Italy, I will invite you. Everything changes at each performance. You see this inflatable ball here? She tried many other props at first, then we tried this inflatable ball, like a bubble, we went inside it and had to find a way of keeping it up, because sometimes it deflates a little, it depends on the electricity of the place where we are performing. Did Carol talk to you about the use of objects? Objects are always used as an extension of us, they need to have a function. We used objects that had been used for other performances, for Marie those objects had acquired a deep meaning because they are part of her past creations. Objects are always treated with respects in her work, they are never thrown into the stage, they are deposited, dragged, pushed… they always involve action.

Vanessa: How much time did it take to make this choreography?

Valeria: It was very simple and fast, maybe a month or two. I found the process of the creation of Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights had a similar approach to the piece called Henri Michaux: Mouvements (2011) in terms of translation of the images projected on the screen and the images embodied by the dancers.

Vanessa: Is there any difference between the choreographies created from scratch and those based on another artworks, like «Bosch»?

Valeria: Definitely. Each choreography has its own energy and its own way to exist and become. For example, with «Bosch», the starting point of the research was the tableau. Same for Henry Michaux: Mouvements (2011), where the book was the starting point. That time though, the creation took quite long. She had the book Mouvements on her table for years. Initially she created a solo for Carol, then she thought of it as an ensemble piece, and she did it in 2011. It took time. She was honest and slow in her process. Her talent rests in the fact that she never gives up, she never doubts herself… or maybe she does but keeps on going. It’s inspiring. What is different in the piece of «Bosch», is that we have the painting projected on the background, and the video she made, using the camera as a magnifying lens, is projected on two round screens situated on each side of the stage. The result was to create not just a choreography with the movement of the dancers, but more of a multimedia installation. With the piece «Mouvements» the images appear briefly and at a sustained rhythm.

Vanessa: I see what you mean. I felt that Chouinard was playing with our sense of trust, our understanding. At the beginning what you see on stage matches what you see in the video, it looks like a facing page translation really. The hell starts, and the images don’t match any more so clearly. And I was moving with the dance.

Valeria: You felt lost.

Vanessa: Yes, it’s a sensation of being tricked. And then you get to the finale, Paradise, and the way she plays with the images of Eve and Adam, and gender identities… like it is not only this received image, but it could also be many other combinations. And from the video, you have these beautiful eyes looking straight at you.

Valeria: Those eyes belong to Lucy Mongrain, a long-time dancer with Marie Chouinard. I started working in the company when she was pregnant, in 2011. She had already been working there for 13 years and that was her leaving – well, she may always come back – but she has a special relation with Marie, a bit like Carol. These people who have been in the company for many years… artistic encounters. She called Lucy to ask her if she could do these beautiful videos with her eyes.

Vanessa: Indeed. It is because it interrogates you, you are initially the one who watches and suddenly you are the one being watched.

Valeria: And it reminds me of the moment in the piece where we dancers all turn towards the public at the same time. We stay still, look straight to the public and afterwards everyone moves. I love this choreography and I love Marie’s work. This has been a remarkable artistic encounter for me.

Vanessa: How did it change your perception of dance, your experience as a dancer?

Valeria: Well, I come from ballet, and I was 25 when I met Marie. I had a very good teacher as a ballet dancer, Annalisa Cernese, although I know other dancers have had traumatising experiences with ballet and some unhealthy practices linked to it. When I started working with Marie, I was so happy, happy to live in another continent, to have a career as a dancer, but mostly happy because I was fascinated by her, and I still am. This person looks so strong yet so feminine, sensual, and her strength is in her intelligence. I’d never seen a woman so radiant, intelligent, human. The way she corrects you and gives suggestion on the movements, the way she relates to you artistically is so human and intelligent that after all these years I still find pleasure in being in the studio with her. As a matter of fact, I meet Marie in her creations, and I must say that my body is made for her aesthetic. I had to adjust some things initially, but then I found my way into her work, I discovered how to be myself in it. And that was the key, a watershed moment. It does no work if you try to copy others, you won’t be happy, and she won’t be happy unless you put your heart and soul into it and make the work yours. I reached that stage after three, maybe four years of work with her and it made our relationship deeper. It takes time: the work is complex; the relation is complex. Both of you are artists and you need to get to know each other, as in any kind of relationship, you need to trust each other. I believe that dance is always connected to human relationship – the deeper and more sincere the relation, the deeper the dance.

Vanessa: and what about the other dancers, what kind of relationship do you have with them?

Valeria: Well, many things have changed. Two generations of dancers have gone. When I was twenty-five and I was learning the language of Marie’s work, everyone looked fantastic and brilliant to me. I learned so much. Then I became the one who taught to the younger dancers… and it is interesting, because I teach what I have been taught and what I discovered through the years, so there is a sort of generational baton being passed there. We spend a lot of time together, especially when we are on tour, we are very connected, but sometimes I also need my space. It’s a bit like family.

Vanessa: If you had to describe the type of body that Chouinard creates in her practice and technique, what would you highlight?

Valeria: I would highlight the connection between earth and sky. This connection, this being very grounded with your feet and pelvis, a fluid spine, and a connection to the sky that makes your body like a channel. The body is seen as a passage of energy, so this is the basis of her work. Movement and energy must flow unencumbered. The movement of the spine, the use of voice as an extension of the body. Developing a hypersensitivity, always listening to your inner sensations, the acceptance and transformation in the present moment. In this, her work is like a translation: this continuous connection. You see, if I had to improvise, I would observe: the green of the trees, but also the chirping of the birds.Already I have two inputs coming from the outside world which connect me to movement, then there is the passing dog, you see my eyes are moving and naturally my hand has moved too [she extends her left arm forward creating a 30 degrees angle at the level of her elbow and a 45 degrees angle with her left hand whose fingers point right] and my foot has moved in a small arch. So, there is this hyper-sensitivity of being in the present moment with everything that happens around you, an opening of the senses, this is Marie’s dancer, a body that is ready, sensitive, listening… listening without judgement, because we don’t look for beauty only, we accept the terrible, we let it come out. Terrifying things exist and we stage them, without judgement. But we always leave something beautiful and luminous at the end. So, it’s the spine, the work you do with your organs, the conversation with the public, the rhythm. When I dance, there are pauses, silences, just like when you speak to someone. There is a truth that emerges from an inner rhythm, a rhythm that shapes the conversation so that the public is always focused, like you are focused now.

Vanessa: Does the dialogue with the public chance with the public, the context, the location…?

Valeria: Yes, you have all kids of audiences, those who are used and those who are not used to our work, those who are generous and those who are shy. And then it depends on the different cultures. But this is a good question, the importance of the public. I dance because I need it, I love it, it is something bigger than myself.

Vanessa: How did lockdown impact that?

Valeria: It was hard. I kept on training at home. It was a good moment to check in with my body and my abilities, my propensities. And I discovered new things. I generally like to train on my own, to remain in my universe rather than to take classes. Dance for me lives in a very intimate context. In this time, I researched new things, I had the time to go deep and find out what makes me feel good. And I taught to a small group of people who aren’t dancers, and I discovered how satisfying it was to teach by offering simple images, to channel people’s energy. It was a free course for non-dancers. I needed to tell everyone that they could access movement. I prepared it during the week, identifying the organs I wanted to work with, for example the connection mouth-stomach, and I would guide the breathing process… it was like a conference on movement delivered while everyone was moving.

Vanessa: Is there a specific choreography that sticks out for you?

Valeria: Each and every choreography gave me something. More so with those pieces we created together than with the pieces of repertoire I had to learn. Each of them carries a different shade of me.

Vanessa: Can we talk about your creation process as a collaborative one?

Valeria: Absolutely. Marie regards her work with dancers as a collaboration, although the final decision is hers only. She is open to our proposals; she listens to us and she trusts us to contribute with something interesting and sensitive.

Vanessa: Do you also work with other companies?

Valeria: We have 40 weeks of work guaranteed with her every year, so when she gives me work, I need to respect her requirements, but when I’m off I can work with whoever. However, I prefer carrying out my own experimentation, my own projects.

Vanessa: My last question – when and how did you start working with Chouinard?

Valeria: Well, I was in Naples. I wanted to dance since the age of five, and I don’t come from an artistic family, so they saw it simply as a hobby. But I knew this is what I was going to do in life. When I was twenty, I started collaborating on small projects with the Biennale in Venice, working with its director Ismael Ivo. In Italy there were very few solid contemporary dance companies. I had a friend who lived in Amsterdam, he called me and said that there were auditions for the Marie Chouinard Dance Company in Vienna. It was 2011. I was in Naples, I did not know the company, I had 400 euros, I was not working, it was full summer, and my dad had given me an ultimatum: either I finish my degree in economy, or I go to live on my own. I had three exams left. I went to Amsterdam, moved into a horrible flat, there were rats in the house. My plan was to look for a job there while taking dance classes. I was twenty, you know. Now when I look back, I wonder how I could have done that. So, the audition was in ten days, I went to Vienna thinking of it as a holiday, without thinking she would have chosen me. She was hosting two big auditions to replace Lucy Mongrain, the dancer we talked about before. I placed myself in the back of the room. She enters, walks around the room, she notes down my number before we start moving. We start auditioning, we were about 100 dancers, after half an hour only forty of us were still there. After an hour, she calls me and asks what my name is, where I come from, if I speak English, if I speak French. My answer was, «I don’t speak either English or French». She asks me if I want to learn French. I said: «I could learn it in a month!» That was ridiculous. She asked me to go to Montreal in ten days and start working for her company. And there I was, ten days later, with two suitcases, without speaking either English or French, completely lost in this land, North America. But it was August, it was warm, beautiful, it was perfect… this is how it all started. You know, at some point you meet someone for a reason, you have a stretch of journey to cover together. I believe in this, it happened more than once to me, the first time with Ismael Ivo, former director of the Biennale in Venice and the best coach I’ve ever had. Three years later I met Marie Chouinard. I can say that I am lucky to have found the choreographer that represents in movement my sensibility and make me happy with her creations.
 

holds a PhD in Comparative Studies from the University of Lisbon and is part of the Synaesthesia research group. Her thesis on dance as intermedial translation received recognition from Lisbon's National Museum of Theatre and Dance. Her research has been published in various journals, including Routledge. Formerly a research assistant at Concordia University, she now lives in Newcastle, working as a community coordinator and independent researcher.

is a dancer, performer, choreographer and film director. Her career as a soloist dancer started at the Biennale Di Venezia (2008), under the artistic direction of Ismael Ivo. In 2010, she became a permanent member of the Compagnie Marie Chouinard, while also contributing to the creation of works signed by Marie Chouinard. She is rewarded by the prestigious prize Positano "Léonide Massine" of the year as an international dancer (2017). Her choreographic journey began with "she's moving" (2019), followed by her role as choreographer and performer in the 360° virtual reality dance film "Tavata" (2020-2021), and her own creation, "LUCE” (2022), where she assumed multiple roles.

Issue #06
1. eu visto o que vesti ao manequim
2. Ernesto Sampaio: A Presciência como Inesgotável «Fonte de Relâmpagos»
3. im ítiri í di timinhi di im pinhi
4. os olhos nas mãos, a cabeça no coração
5. a longevidade do grito
6. aurora rua. otherness. tura tura.
7. trilogia do até amanhã, e assim por diante
8. [Sem a valorização do perigo de perder certezas e a procura do desconforto, não há Leitura Furiosa]
9. Listening and Metamorphosis in the Choreographic Work “Hieronymus Bosch: The Garden of Earthly Delights” (2016): an Interview with Dancer Valeria Galluccio (Compagnie Marie Chouinard)
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