NO one could call it rude . . . but it is certainly nude – and therefore perhaps startling.
An avant-garde French dance troupe is bringing an all-naked dance show to Manhattan this week, as part of the citywide festival of French contemporary dance, called France Moves.
Though the two-week festival features 10 dance companies and world-famous names including Maguy Marin and Angelin Preljocaj, much of the spotlight will be stolen by 27-year-old Boris Charmatz, the youngest artistic director featured.
Charmatz and his troupe, Boris Charmatz/Association Edna, dance nude.
I first saw Charmatz perform – he was dancing a nude duet with another man, Dimitri Chamblas – at the Edinburgh Festival in 1999. The duet was athletic, perhaps what the French would call sportif.
Once the initial awareness of nakedness had been absorbed – Gosh! The Emperor really does have no clothes! – the mind settles down serenely to watch the dance. Any eroticism would have to be in the eye of the perceiver, but that’s true of much dance.
Charmatz himself is classically trained, having studied at the great ballet school of the Paris Opera. But he soon decided that appearing in “Giselle” and the like was not for him. So he went his own way.
So how did that way lead to total nudity? At first it didn’t. “I almost fought against complete nudity,” Charmatz said. “One work we danced dressed just in T-shirts – but it looked more nude than nude.”
“And in fact we are not really nude – we are wearing wigs.”
Charmatz is keenly aware of dance history. Naked bodies have always been an “interesting part of modern dance,” he is quick to point out.
“The naked body hides every bit as much as it reveals,” he said. “And this is a long work. Audiences notice we’re naked, and then forget it.”
At the beginning of the last century the great Isadora Duncan, the virtual founder of all contemporary dance, occasionally bared more than her soul.
You might have expected dance to be at the forefront in any expression of the naked truth. But there are physical difficulties.
The leaps and jumps of classic ballet are practically impossible nude.
The late Sir Robert Helpmann, the celebrated Australian dancer and choreographer, was once asked his opinion of classical ballet in the nude. He pondered for a little and then replied: “Well, it would be awkward, wouldn’t it, with all those bits and bobs bobbing and bitting around all the time.”
Modern dance – with its more sinuous pattern of movement – is probably better adapted to nudity, and indeed at BAM, some 20 years ago, we had a nude modern dance work given by the Dutch National Ballet.
By the way, what is this Association with Edna? Charmatz laughs, “Oh that’s a joke,” he says. “The French authorities insisted the company had to have a title. We thought and thought, and finally came up with Boris Charmatz/Association Edna.”
Boris Charmatz/Association Edna, The Kitchen, 512 W. 19th St., between 10th & 11th Avenues. (212) 255-5793 Ext. 11. Season runs through April 28. For full details of the France Moves Festival visit http://www.francemoves.com.