"Employing every means of locomotion: ships, planes, horse, camel, elephant, but above all I walked, I went on foot, rucksack on my back from China to India through Tibet. I have contemplated many countries and at the same time examined the mental landscapes, as diverse as the physical landscapes represented by the philosophical, social and religious conceptions of the human spirit. This double exploration has occupied my whole life and will, I hope, continue to occupy it until my last day."
Alexandra David-Neel
MY BODY IS LIKE A MOUNTAIN
The mountain is battered by the hurricane; my body is battered by the whirlwind of external activity. Just as the mountain remains impassive, unshaken in the midst of the storm, my body, "closing the door of the senses", can refrain from reacting with reflex manifestations of activity, while perceptions and sensations assault it like a hurricane.
MY EYES ARE LIKE THE OCEAN
If the ocean drank up all the images imprinted on its surface, having absorbed them all, none could ever again disturb the purity of its clear mirror. By allowing the images reflected by the eyes to sink to the very depths of the mind, until all forms have sunk, their shadows no longer disturbing vision, we can see beyond them.
MY MIND IS LIKE THE SKY
In the empty immensity of the sky, I was told another day, clouds are forming. They come from nowhere and go nowhere. Nowhere is there an abode for clouds. They form in the emptiness of the sky and dissolve there, like thoughts in the mind."
"Initiations lamaïstes, des théories des pratiques des hommes"
Alexandra David-Neel - 1930
Alexandra David-Neel decided to become a Buddhist at the age of twenty, when the doors of the Guimet Museum opened. Although she was not the only one to make this choice - many Parisian intellectuals of the time were discovering Buddhism and embracing it - she was the only one to go and study the original texts, spending 14 years surveying the Himalayan solitudes as well as the vast lands of India, Korea, Japan and China. This research led her to be the first Westerner to enter Lhasa, Tibet's capital forbidden to foreigners.
Alexandra David-Neel is a unique, independent character with a strange destiny, modeling herself on no one and identifying herself only with herself. Pioneering, avant-garde, unclassifiable and a great scholar, Alexandra David-Neel is an exceptional woman.
On her return from Tibet, a feat that made her world-famous, Alexandra David-Neel temporarily set down her many travel trunks in Toulon, at the villa "Les Mazots" in Cap Brun. She left Toulon for Digne-les-Bains, where she died after living there for 41 years.
A D-N double helix structure.
A D-N bears witness to transformation.
A D-N is built by deconstructing itself. Doing and undoing. Never finished, always at work, always in motion, experimenting and offering itself.
Inspired by the work and life of Alexandra David-Neel, and based on the skeleton of the DNA molecule.
Working with time and space -weaving is how we are woven-, 2 strands, wrapped around each other, appear.
DUO
Once a month since last autumn, Régine Chopinot and Nico Morcillo roll the dice to provoke and summon up an elongated series of danced and played gestures.
A suspended, unpredictable duo whose vocabulary is built up through listening, repetition and challenge. Depending on time and the luminosity of the venue. The audience all around.
QUATUOR
A D-N activates fire and listening. Phenomena of presence and vibration. On the bare stage, we enter once and stay until the end.
A backward walk, on the edge, giving the metronomy of time and determining the spiral-shaped space. With A D-N's words like a scansion, a pulsation with vibratory resonance.
ON THE PLATEAU OF THE MC93'S EFREMOV ROOM
4 weeks of research and creation
+ 1 week of 5 public presentations
2weeks in September and November 2020
- Tuesday mornings September 1 to Sunday evenings September 6, 2020 - Tuesday mornings November 10 to Sunday evenings November 15, 2020
2weeks in January 2021
- Tuesday mornings January 5 to Sunday evenings January 24, 2021
1week of 5 public presentations
- creation on January 20, 21, 22 23, 24, 2021 at the MC93
Press review
AD-N
Dossier deprésentation
AD-N
Production
MC93- Maison de la Culture de Seine-Saint-Denis - Bobigny
Co-production
MaisonCDCN Uzès Gard Occitanie
Press
Toute la Culture
The Sunday of... - JDD
Marie Richeux - France Culture
duo:
Régine Chopinot dance
Nico Morcillo acoustic guitar
Duration: approx. one hour
With support from Port des créateurs Toulon, Villa Tamaris Centre d'art de la Seyne-sur-Mer, and Festival Uzès danse.
quartet:
Création sur le Plateau de la salle Efremov de la MC93 for professionals January 20, 21, 22, 2021 - Covid - at the MC93 then June 5 and 6, 2021 in the new hall of the MC93.
Nicolas Barillot sound
Prunelle Bry dance
Régine Chopinot dance choreography
Phia Ménard spiral
Nico Morcillo guitar composition
Sallahdyn Khatir light
Christine Breton, Ph.D. in history, and Nadine Gomez, head curator and director of Alexandra David Neel's home in Digne-les-Bains, scientific advisors.
Hortense Archambault and Frank Piquard of the MC93 are executive producers of A D-N. Co-production Festival Uzès danse. Production MC93 - Maison de la Culture de Seine- Saint-Denis. With Cornucopiae, le Port des créateurs Toulon, Villa Tamaris Centre d'Art de la Seyne-sur-Mer and Festival Uzès danse.
