Patrick Bensard
The Speaker
Patrick Bensard was born in Boulogne Billancourt in 1947. After studying philosophy at the Sorbonne and psychoanalysis at the Université de Vincennes, he became fascinated with cinema, photography and, later, with dance. Very early on, he started writing articles for the Cahiers du Cinéma as well as pieces on dance after co-founding in 1979 the magazine Empreinte(s) the first periodical dedicated to contemporary dance. During the 1970s, he worked as an assistant in New York along with Marc Riboud, Yan Berry, Eric Lessing, and Leonard Freed. This first trip to New York was the start of a fine and close relationship with the world of dance.
In 1982, while he was Artistic Director for the Châteauvallon dance festival, Patrick Bensard was entrusted with the task of setting up and directing the Cinémathèque de la Danse as part of the Cinémathèque française. Igor Eisner (director of the dance section of the Ministry of Culture), and Costa Gavras (chairman of the Cinémathèque française), on the initiative of the Ministry of Culture, assigned him this challenge.
Patrick Bensard is the writer and producer of two documentaries, Le Mystère Babilée, 2000 (Arte) and Lucinda Childs, 2007 (Arte and Lieurac Productions) dedicated to two great dance icons of the 20th century, Jean Babilée and Lucinda Childs.
He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1996 and Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 2004.
La Cinémathèque de la Danse
An independent association since 2005, La Cinémathèque de la Danse is now 26 years old. It regularly presents its programmes at the Cinémathèque française now located in the rue de Bercy. Some statistics: since its creation, more than 500 films and 5,000 videos make up its collections; more than 3,000 missions and events have been organized in France and abroad; and 50 or so full-length films have been presented with panache at the Palais Garnier-Opéra National de Paris and at the Théâtre de Châtelet. But above all, this unique institution is fervently devoted to images of every style and form of dance – be it classical or modern, learned or popular, related to western orchestral music or Egyptian music, based on Kabuki, Samba, hip-hop or flamenco. Let us not forget Jean Rouch's priceless ethnographical accounts or the outstanding jazz films which make up the Jo Milgram collection, passed on to the Cinémathèque de la Danse in 1995 by this jazz fanatic.
Lectures
Tricks of Memory: The First Black Artists in France
Format: lecture, screening from the archives (60 minutes) followed by discussion
Following in the tracks of the cake-walk… This is a performance which Jean Cocteau attended in 1902 and which he recalls in 1935, more than thirty years later. The performance took place at the Nouveau Cirque, and it was probably one of the first dance performances which he attended. The cake-walk was the dance performed by black slaves on the plantations in the South in the United States. Sometimes the masters allowed them to borrow frock coats and top hats, which they took brilliant advantage of to caricaturize the lenders in a sort of saraband which evoked the drawing room dances of the period. And as a reward, the best of them received a large slice of cake, whence the name cake walk. Remember that this dance was the forerunner of jazz dances. As a follow-up to this undertaking by the Elks – the cake-walk dancers – images of the first black artists, dancers or musicians who came to France will be projected: Josephine Baker, Johnny Hudgins, Katherine Dunham, the Nicholas Brothers, Duke Ellington, Sydney Bechet and many more. As if Paris had, once and for all, been part of their destiny.
Le Mystère Babilée
Format: screening of the film Le Mystère Babilée, 2000, 90 minutes (produced by Arte and Lieurac Productions) followed by a discussion
"Jean Babilée is truly a wise man: his untiring curiosity, his intelligence both in situations and in retorts, his instinctive way of connecting with people and things, or avoiding them in a flash; his emancipated behavior, the elegance of his gaze as well as the technical virtuosity of his performance style all come from an ethic and remain inseparable from what Heinrich von Kleist had termed superbly 'the path of the dancer's soul'".
Jean Babilée was born in 1923 in Paris. This outstanding dancer's claim to fame came with his interpretation of Le Jeune Homme et la Mort in 1946 (based on an outline by Jean Cocteau). After studies at the Opéra de Paris (1936-1940), Jean Babilée began his post-war career in Cannes. He was named principal dancer of the Ballets des Champs-Elysees (1945-1950), when he created many ballets such as Jeu de cartes with Janine Charrat, Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, L'Amour et son amour, Till Eulenspiegel, etc. In New York in 1979, at age 56, he created Life, choreographed by Maurice Béjart. At age 61, he once again performed Le Jeune Homme et la Mort with the Ballet de Marseille at the Théâtre du Châtelet in 1984.
In this film directed by Patrick Bensard, the dancer, a great storyteller, conveys his passion for artistic adventures, with modest references to some of his more intimate recollections. The film includes many accounts, including those of Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Goude, Yvette Chauvirée, and Maurice Béjart. Many interviews and excerpts of choreographic work reconstruct the unusual career of an artist who was known since the beginning of his career as the "enfant terrible of dance."
Jean-Paul Goude, French creative artist and citizen of the world
Format: lecture, screening of some archives (60 minutes) followed by discussion
Dance has always been essential to my work. My vision of dance isn't limited to classical or modern or hip-hop choreography, but is open to every movement of the human body that seems to be accurate and harmonious... And I've always drawn people dancing or moving, encouraged by my mother, a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer, obsessed with the beauty of the line, with beauty in general. Jean-Paul Goude
Jean-Paul Goude, one of the most brilliant image- and myth-makers of our time, was able to capture, through the speed, insolence and elegance of his graphic and cinematographic montages, the fever of the colors and rhythms of the entire world.
Since the 1960s, his sentimental fetishism and his precise and vitriolic style have been inspired by every type of dance, be it popular or classical. He reminds us that dance – with its universal power of creativity, rupture and freedom – has always mixed different social classes and ethnic groups together. We find this mixture at the core of the graphic artist's work. Jean-Paul Goude doesn't only dissect different imaginary series, but he also always makes the line shoot out (of a body, of a movement) which, for a series of given images, will become a calligraphic and totemic symbol. His fascination with and love for his female models connect us with the whims of the people and the lightness of the world.
Patrick Bensard will also discuss the relationship between Philippe Decouflé and Jean-Paul Goude and how the latter influenced the talented young artist who belongs to the new generation of contemporary choreographers.
The event will include a screening of scenes from Jean-Paul Goude's favorite films with commentary by Patrick Bensard. There will also be montages of Jean Babilée, Alvin Ailey, Eduardo Villella, Michael Kidd, Mohammed Ali, James Brown, Gene Kelly, Jerome Robbins, Grace Jones, Judith Jamison, Agnès de Mille, and Marlon Brando, as well as a showing of advertisement clips directed by Jean-Paul Goude himself.
N.B: The films and archives screened are in Beta, SP Pal, and DVD.
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