MAGNIFICAT & HENRI MICHAUX: MOUVEMENTS

Opening ceremony of the 36th euro-scene Leipzig before the performance in Foyer 1 with:
Athena Lucie Assamba Performance
Dr Skadi Jennicke Mayor and Deputy Mayor for Culture of the City of Leipzig
Geneviève Rolland Delegate General of Québec for Germany, Austria and Switzerland
Aline Fiedler Head of Art and Culture Department, SMKT Saxony

Could you tell us something about the creation of MAGNIFICAT? What inspired you to choreograph Bach’s Magnificat?

Bach has been part of my life for many years. In 2005, with bODYrEMIX/lesvARIATIONS gOLDBERG, I had already approached the Goldberg Variations, although in the form of a remix—as if, at that time, I had not yet been ready to confront his music in its pure form. With Magnificat, it was hearing the work again, listening so deeply that it reached my very cells, that provided the decisive impulse.

I was moved by the intelligence of the Magnificat, its emotional power and the way Bach gives form to the impulse of the Annunciation. I am not religious, but I recognise the power of this hymn, the joy of being permeated by something greater than ourselves. I simply felt that the time had come to immerse myself in this music and allow it to guide me in creating the choreography.

How did Bach’s music influence your choreographic process?

I listen in a way that sets sounds in motion, evoking colours, physical sensations and inner spaces. These sensual intuitions, these unruly, lightning-fast impulses, set the work in motion. At the heart of the process is the encounter between the way I listen and the form that gradually emerges. Choreography thus becomes a way of making visible what the music triggers within me. HENRI MICHAUX: MOUVEMENTS was created in 2011, based on Michaux’s drawings.

Could you tell us something about the creation of this piece?

HENRI MICHAUX: MOUVEMENTS grew out of a volume containing a poem and 64 drawings by Henri Michaux, which had stood in my library for more than twenty years. For a long time, I leafed through it without imagining that it might one day become material for dance. Then, one day, my perception changed: these abstract drawings, these ink blots, suddenly appeared to me as a genuine choreographic score.

Each form contained a direction, an energy and an organisation of movement that could be transferred to the body. The realisation came instantly—as though the book had simply been waiting for me to become ready to recognise the movements inscribed within it and give them shape in space.

How did you translate these drawings into movement? Could you give us an insight into your research process?

We approached the task very concretely: I worked through the drawings individually, following the order in which they appear in the book. The dancers were dressed entirely in black, so that they themselves became marks against the white space of the studio. When a drawing was too complex to be represented by a single body, I distributed the form among several dancers.

To work precisely, I projected each drawing at a very large scale onto a wall. This allowed us to see its structure and energy clearly. Gradually, drawing by drawing, the piece took shape almost by itself: the way the forms followed one another, how variations were introduced and how we played with the blank pages. Once we had discovered this logic, everything came together with a certain inevitability.

Interview: Wilson Le Personnic, for Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, 11 December 2025. https://www.theatredelaville-paris.com/fr/theatre-sans-frontieres/lart-comme-celebration-entretien-avec-la-choregraphe-quebecoise-marie-chouinard?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

Marie Chouinard was born in Quebec. At the age of 16, she spent four months alone in Percé, a seaside village in the Gaspé Peninsula known for its iconic rock formation—an experience that would transform her life.

As a choreographer, she traveled the world as a solo performer for 12 years before founding the COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD in 1990. Her works, radical and deeply resonant, with a singular signature, have stood the test of time and are part of the repertoires of major international ballet companies.

She is also a director (films, apps, virtual reality works), an author (Zéro Douze, Chantiers des extases), and a visual artist (photography, drawings, installations, performance). She creates choreographic works for site-specific installations, for the screen, and in real-time for the web.

She was named an Officière des Arts et des Lettres in France, is a Bessie Award recipient in New York, and has a star on the Walk of Fame in Sibiu, Romania. She has received some thirty of the most prestigious awards and honors.

In 2011, she founded the Prix de la Danse de Montréal, and from 2017 to 2020, she served as Director of Dance at the Venice Biennale. Marie Chouinard is currently preparing a solo exhibition of her visual and performance works (2027).

MOUVEMENTS

A rolling race

a boiling crawl

teeming unit

dancing block

A defenestrated flies off

torn up and down

torn all over

torn never to attach again

Man bracing

man leaping

man hurtling

man for the lightning operation

for the storm operation

for the harpoon operation

for the shark operation

for the bursting operation

Man not by flesh

but through emptiness and evil and intestinal torches

and flashes and nervous discharges

and setbacks

and returns

and rage

and tearing

and entanglement

and taking off in sparks

Man not by abdomen and buttock plates or vertebrae

but through his currents, his weakness what recovers from shock, his

startings

man by the moon and burning powder and the bazaar itself

from the movement of others

and the storm and the wind rising and chaos never ordered

Man all flags outside, slapping in the wind rustling his instincts

man who thrashes the parrot

who has no joints

who does no farming

goatman

crestman

with spines

with shortcuts

tuft man, galvanizing his rags

man with secret supports, rocketing far from his degrading life

Desire barking in the dark is the many-sided form of this being

Flashes scissoring

forking

flashes radiating

flashes across the whole compass rose

To the noises, to the roaring

if one gave a body!

To the sounds of the balafo and the piercing drill

to the foot-stamping teenagers who do not yet know

what it means that their chests feel about to burst

to the joltings, rumblings, surgings

to tides of blood in the arteries suddenly changing direction

to thirst

to thirst especially

thirst never quenched

if one gave a body!...

Soul of lasso

of alga

of jack, grapple and swelling wave

of hawk, gnu, elephant seal

triple soul

eccentric soul

zealot soul

electrified larva soul coming to bite the surface

soul of beatings and gnashing of teeth

overhanging soul always straightened again

With disregard to any heaviness

any languor

any geometry

any architecture

disregarding: SPEED!

Movement and ripping apart of internal exasperation more than

movements of walking

movements of explosion, denial, stretching in all directions

unhealthy attractions, impossible desires

gratification of the flesh struck in the neck

headless movements

What good's a head when overwhelmed?

Movement of folding and coiling inward while

waiting for better

movements of inner shields

movements with multiple jets

residual movements

movements instead of other movements that can't be shown

but that inhabit the spirit

with dust

with stars

with erosion

with landslides

and vain latencies...

Festival of stains, scale of arms

movements

we jump into "nothing"

turning efforts

being alone, we are the crowd

What countless number advances

adds, expands, expands!

Goodbye fatigue

farewell efficient bipedal at the station of the bridge abutment

the sheath torn, we are other

any other

we no longer pay tribute

a corolla opens, bottomless dive...

The stride now has the length of hope

the leap has the length of thought

it has eight legs if we have to run

it has ten arms if we join forces

completely rooted, when we have to hold

never beaten

always returning

new returning

while soothed the keyboard master feigned sleep!

Henri Michaux, 1951

Translation © Howard Scott

With the permission of the right-holders Henri Michaux and Editions Gallimard

MOUVEMENTS

Course qui rampe
rampement qui vole
unité qui fourmille
bloc qui danse

Un défenestré s’envole
un arraché de bas en haut
un arraché de partout
un arraché jamais plus rattaché

Homme arc-bouté
homme au bond
homme dévalant
homme pour l’opération éclair
pour l’opération tempête
pour l’opération harpon
pour l’opération requin
pour l’opération arrachement

Homme non selon la chair
mais par le vide et le mal et les flammes intestines
et les bouffées et les décharges nerveuses
et les revers
et les retours
et la rage
et l’écartèlement
et l’emmêlement
et le décollage dans les étincelles

Homme non par l’abdomen et les plaques fessières
mais par ses courants, sa faiblesse qui se redresse aux chocs
ses démarrages
homme selon la lune et la poudre brûlante et la kermesse en soi du mouvement des autres
selon la bourrasque et le chaos jamais ordonné
homme, tous pavillons dehors, claquant au vent bruissant de ses pulsions
homme qui rosse le perroquet
qui n’a pas d’articulations
qui ne fait pas d’élevage

homme-bouc
homme à crêtes
à piquants,
à raccourcis
homme à huppe, galvanisant ses haillons
homme aux appuis secrets, fusant loin de son avilissante vie
Désir qui aboie dans le noir est la forme multiforme de cet être

Élans en ciseaux
en fourches
élans rayonnés
élans sur toute la Rose des vents

Au vacarme
au rugissement, si l’on donnait un corps…
Aux sons du cymbalum, à la foreuse perçante
aux trépignements adolescents qui ne savent encore
ce que veut leur poitrine qui est comme si elle allait éclater
aux saccades, aux grondements, aux déferlements
aux marées de sang dans le cœur
dans les artères tout à coup changeant de sens
à la soif
à la soif surtout
à la soif jamais étanchée
si l’on donnait un corps…

Âme  du lasso
de l’algue
du cric, du grappin et de la vague qui gonfle
de l’épervier, du morse, de l’éléphant marin
âme triple
excentrée
énergumène
âme de larve électrisée venant mordre à la surface
âme des coups et des grincements de dents
âme en porte à faux toujours vers un nouveau redressement

Abstraction de toute lourdeur
de toute langueur
de toute géométrie
de toute architecture
abstraction faite, VITESSE!

Mouvements d’écartèlement et d’exaspération intérieur plus que mouvements de la marche
mouvements d’explosion, de refus, d’étirement en tous sens
d’attractions malsaines, d’envies impossibles
d’assouvissement de la chair frappée à la nuque
Mouvements sans têtes
À quoi bon la tête quand on est débordé ?
Mouvements des replis et des enroulements sur soi-même
et des boucliers intérieurs

mouvements à jets multiples
mouvements à la place d’autres mouvements
qu’on ne peut montrer, mais qui habitent l’esprit
de poussières
d’étoiles
d’érosion
d’éboulements
et de vaines latences

Fête de tâches, gamme des bras
mouvements
on saute dans le « rien »
efforts tournants
étant seul, on est foule
Quel nombre incalculable s’avance
ajoute, s’étend, s’étend!
Adieu fatigue
adieu bipède économe à la station de culée de pont
le fourreau arraché
on est autrui
n’importe quel autrui
On ne paie plus tribut
une corolle s’ouvre, matrice sans fond
La foulée désormais a la longueur de l’espoir
Le saut a la hauteur de la pensée
on a huit pattes s’il faut courir
on a dix bras s’il faut faire front
on est tout enraciné, quand il s’agit de tenir
Jamais battu
toujours revenant
nouveau revenant
tandis qu’apaisé le maître du clavier feint le sommeil

Henri Michaux, 1951
Avec la permission des ayants droits d’Henri Michaux et des Éditions Gallimard

MAGNIFICAT Choreography Marie Chouinard Music Johann Sebastian Bach: Magnificat BWV 243, recording by La Chapelle Royale and Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe. By permission of PIAS Recordings Lighting + Set + Costumes + Make-up Marie Chouinard Premiere Madrid en Danza Festival, Madrid, 25 May 2025

HENRI MICHAUX: MOUVEMENTS Choreography + Vocal Composition Marie Chouinard Music Louis Dufort Lighting + Set + Video + Costumes + Hair Styling Marie Chouinard Text + Drawings Henri Michaux, from Mouvements (1951), reproduced with the permission of the rights holders of Henri Michaux and Éditions Gallimard Translation Howard Scott Voice Gérard Reyes Premiere ImPulsTanz, Vienna International Dance Festival, Vienna, 2 August 2011

Dancers Michael Baboolal, Adrian W. S. Batt, Julianna Bryson, Justin Calvadores, Rose Gagnol, Valeria Galluccio, Béatrice Larouche, Luigi Luna, Carol Prieur, Arnaud Mongeon, Jérôme Zerges Rehearsal Director Paige Culley Touring Martin Coutu Technical + Stage Management Félix Lefebvre Lighting Technician Tristan-Olivier Breiding Sound Technician Maxime Lambert International Touring Representation Julie George Touring Support Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), Québec Government Office in Berlin

Production Compagnie Marie Chouinard Co-production HENRI MICHAUX: MOUVEMENTS ImPulsTanz (Vienna) Funding Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), Conseil des arts de Montréal (CAM), Canada Council for the Arts (CAC)

www.mariechouinard.com

The COMPAGNIE MARIE CHOUINARD is proud to be carbon neutral. Since 2020, the company has analyzed and offset the carbon footprint of its tours, its productions and its studios. The company supports the Quebec initiative, Carbone boréal, which reforests naturally deserted terrain in the boreal forests north of Lake Saint Jean. These are public lands which are protected by their designation as experimental forests in conjunction with the Quebec Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks. This project is also used for scientific research.