Trained in contemporary dance as a dancer-performer in France (Coline training) and in England (London Contemporary Dance School), collaborating with, among others, Ballets C de la B, Mathilde Monnier, Emanuel Gat, Ben Duke and more recently Mélanie Perrier within the Company 2Minimum, the director Doria Belanger has been developing personal work for several years which can be seen in the form of video installations (GIVE ME A MINUTE, JOULE), in situ choreographic proposals (JOULE -IN SITU, INTERIOR NIGHT) and dance films (WIND APPARENT, AN ISLAND OF DANCE). This path interests him in that it allows him to “capture dance”, by conjuring the ephemeral dimension of the live performance while enriching it with a pictorial dimension.
SYNOPSIS
In a deserted town that seems to have escaped time, two solitary beings dance with the wind. From dust to dust, their encounter gives life to the elements. A physical and metaphysical tale about the origins of wind.
statement
The wind cannot be seen, it is experienced. The wind rushes in, lifts, jostles, carries, rocks, caresses, whips... so many ways of receiving and apprehending this external breath which has a lot to do with the breathing of the world. Because we can use the wind as well as endure it. Resist or let yourself be carried away.
In physics, we call apparent wind the wind as it is felt by the observer in motion. It is this notion that I wanted to develop visually, through two enigmatic characters, in that it focuses on the feeling body. My approach is therefore intended to be fundamentally sensitive. What better way than dance, as an ephemeral manifestation of movement, to express its nuances? Dance and the wind: what possible dialogue, what points of contact?
Initially trained in dance and choreography, I seek as a director to emancipate myself from the spoken text and the narration imposed by the cinema script in order to touch, move, make people think, in this universal language that is dance, the dancing body, in movement. My approach is intended to be natural, without artifice, at the service of the emotion provoked by the movement.
Le Havre, as a maritime entrance, is a particularly windy city. In addition, its architectural resources multiply the perspectives and the effects of winds, creating an exceptional diversity of urban breaths, without forgetting the aesthetics of lines and curves, extremely inspiring visually and for the staging. Accelerations, swirls, aspirations, pressures, variations, etc. : so many effects conducive to a succession of choreographies summoning lightness and mass, struggle and carelessness, capable of giving birth to a grand urban ball, centered on the meeting of two isolated beings, brought together by breath. I also sought to recreate in my film a meeting space for the two beings which is allegorical, without any real indication of temporality or place, and Le Havre, with its constructions that are both classic and (retro)futuristic, embodies this. the idea.
A word finally on the sound score, always essential since I make films without words: with the composer Méryll Ampe, we worked on an extremely written score, playing on the nuances of wind, appearance/disappearance, variations of intensity/aspirations , breath / granularity, disturbances, etc. and this, in order to restore its entire sensitive dimension.
In the end, the film is seen as a sensory journey at the heart of a great celebration of wind dances.