Montpellier Danse has always been on the move. Yet the 45th edition of this French festival, founded in 1981 by Dominique Bagouet, was particularly turbulent. First, it bid a twofold farewell: not only was it the last one programmed by Jean-Paul Montanari before he stepped down from his leading position after 42 years, but it was also the first that Montanari would not see himself, as he died on 25 April 2025, just a few weeks before the opening. This sad news, that profoundly affected the French dance community, gave a deeper meaning to Montanari’s handover. Second, the festival merged with the National Choreographic Center (CCN) of Montpellier, both housed at the Agora-Cité International de la danse. This June, the brand-new experimental and ambitious structure revealed its board of four codirectors, formed by Jann Gallois, Dominique Hervieu, Pierre Martinez and Hofesh Shechter. Third, others who had been scheduled could not attend: due to the closure of air space around Israel, Batsheva Dance Company had to withdraw (quite last-minute) from opening the festival’s two-week line-up. The festival proceeded despite such obstacles, and I dived with great interest into its opening week of rich and multifacted works by both artists both regular and new.
Éric Minh Cuong Castaing, Forme(s) de vie
At Hangar Théâtre, Éric Minh Cuong Castaing shapes motion through emotion in unexpected ways. With his Forme(s) de vie [Forms of Life], which premiered in 2021, the Marseille-based choreographer brings together two disabled performers and three able-bodied dancers from his company Shonen. The first pair is introduced by video footage showing former boxer Kamel Messelleka fighting his way outdoors, supported by dancer Aloun Marchal wrapping his arms around him from behind. When the image freezes, the duet takes over onstage to undergo a live metamorphosis. At first a frail, fragile, even frightened silhouette, the ex-athlete joyfully rediscovers the amplitude and freedom of movement with the support of Marchal. More than a double or a proxy, Marchal embodies a sort of living aura around Messelleka. But the choreography soon reverses the roles. All smiles, the boxer boldly takes the lead, jumping through the audience (making playful apologies on the way) while Marchal joins hands with dancer Nans Pierson to support him like human kickstands. Progressively the constrained, huddled up silhouette expands and the contrast gets even more striking as the boxer lets out gasps and grunts while punching left and right in space.
Holding hands with dancer Yumiko Funaya, Elise Argaud takes the paradox one step further. As a former dancer with Parkinson’s disease, her stiffened body speeds in slow motion. Lifting or pointing a hand into space, she does not seek epicness, yet she triggers amazement. But even more than her gestures, the intensity of her presence emanates from her gaze. So one small step for Funaya may be one giant leap for Argaud, but it’s when the former deciphers the looks and shivers of the latter that the pair is most moving.
Experiencing a form of augmented reality, Messelleka and Argaud re-activate their embodied memory with giant strides. The short films cast between their live duets broaden and deepen the bond with the audience. Seeing the inner joy of a woman in palliative care after physical therapy reaches a climax of kinaesthetic empathy. Éric Minh Cuong Castaing’s piece creates a sensitive interpersonal experience where bodies meet in their vulnerabilities, and life moves, and is moved, in multiple forms.
Akram Khan & Manal AlDowayan, Thikra, Night of Remembering
At the Opéra Comédie, Akram Khan’s Thikra (‘memory’ in Arabic) takes the festival to a whole new world. In the darkness, a woman appears lying in a white dress downstage, while a red light emerging from the back reveals a group of female dancers standing in front of a cave. On top of this unfortunate cardboard-like stage set by Manal AlDowayan, another mysterious silhouette in burgundy robes takes off a long-bearded helmet before walking down to turn over a carved stone tablet. A pair of dancers both wearing black join the sorority, though one of them appears to be the alter ego of the woman in white.
Commissioned by Wadi AlFann, Valley of Arts, AlUla, the piece patently draws inspiration from ancient times. But whether it refers to a religious ceremony or a martial ritual remains a mystery, since the narration is as obscure as the atmosphere. The constant hammering of tambours and percussion soon becomes overpowering. The work’s choral dance sequences certainly sparkle with vivid impressions. Aligned face on, with open legs and bent knees, the fourteen performers take strongly rooted steps, as one or in canon, while twisting their wrists, elbows and arms in swift and sharp gestures. But strangely enough, the gracious and vigorous choreography seems to be obsessed with the dancers’ hair. In a work full of symbolism, might the repeated whirling, twisting, stretching of hair reflect an awkward fascination of the male gaze? It is hard to say, for the work itself feels closed to us. While Khan seems to have designed an on-brand choreography, the dramaturgy fails to convey a clear narrative to truly connect with it. Despite captivating dance snapshots, the piece remains a puzzle.
Camille Boitel & Sève Bernard, “ ”
Circus performers Camille Boitel and Sève Bernard also go back to the roots of their work together, starting with a piece entitled L’immédiat, which premiered in 2009. Only now, they do things differently. In fact, naming a piece with quotation marks already speaks volumes: “ ” is paradoxically built on the concept of deconstruction. After Boitel bursts into a shaky living room by breaking down its lone door, his first move leads to tearing the whole set in a meticulously choreographed mess. Bernard joins him to add more crumbling to the scene that seems to be ruled by Sod’s Law. As in a domino effect, the stool, boxes, tables, dressers, spotlights and eventually the stage curtain are taken down. Even if the outcome is quite obvious from the start, the pair manages to keep the element of surprise in this ingenious clownish spiral.
The crew that comes in to clear off the whole mess in record time shows the extent of this impressively organised chaos, and this turnover also turns the piece into a series of unfortunate events. The Théâtre de l’Agora makes a perfect playground for comings and goings between stairs, stage and hidden corridors, leading to surprise encounters and a lot of gasping. On their way, the performers hit catching sequences, playing hide-and-seek in a ballet of dark banners, or race after a bottle of water in a snail-like position (lying supine while shunting forward with their shoulders). Yet these bright sparks of creativity dilute in a bunch of running gags that tend to go round in circles. In the end, the tower of haphazardly piled up chairs, wooden and iron sticks, crates, ladders, scaffolding and a shopping cart couldn’t save the day. Despite its strangely nice-looking façade, the foundation of the piece wasn’t strong enough to hold.
Armin Hokmi, Of the Heart – An Etude
After making a strong impression with Shiraz last year, Armin Hokmi comes back to Montpellier Danse with a study Of the Heart. Set in the Agora courtyard, this twenty-minute piece is still a work in progress, but it definitely outlines Hokmi’s choreographic signature. Together with Katherina Jitlatda Horup Solvang, who performs the solo, the Berlin-based choreographer designs multidirectional, geometrical and unpredictable patterns of minimalistic gestures in close relationship with the soundscape. The finished piece is planned to include eleven performers, but for now the solo format allows a focus on the structure of dance writing and its incorporation.
Alternately in and out of step, the choreography puts emphasis on hands, hips, knees, neck, elbows and shoulder joints, exploring their potential for flexibility across a wide range of intensity. The Solvang holds her arms in a triangle by joining the tips of her fingers on her chest or waist. Switching from frontal to diagonal or lateral directions, the sequences of steps find a witty balance between repetition and variation, to mesmerising effect. Completely absorbed, casting a focused look in the distance, Solvang evolves in a limited space without ever looking hemmed in. As the layers of Persian rhythmical motifs become more complex, her geometrical moves become more flexible, both in design and style. Here, her sensual hip shuffling straightens up in what looks like a ballet third or fifth position. There, her martial stamping is reminiscent of a flamenco bailaora’s proudly grounded attitude. The process pins us to her every step until she stops in a braced position, as if looking forward to her next move in the upcoming complete work.
Pierre Pontvianne, La Liesse
French choreographer Pierre Pontvianne seems to be keen on paradoxes as La Liesse[Jubilation] is far from filling the Théâtre de la Vignette with joy. Under a range of blinding red spotlights, five performers wearing loose blue and black outfits join in encircling motifs that match the thudding soundscape. Gathering momentum, their arms lace up to form swirling chains of bodies that split up in pairs, follow their own path like free radicals. The tension grows between the bodies falling in soft embrace and a rising oppressive, melancholic atmosphere.
From backlighting to overexposure, the perpetual binding-disbanding dynamic develops into a neat flow of movement that extends, retracts, expands and folds back in again. But building on the concept of chains of reaction, the dance motifs fail to weave a consistent web. As the arms and legs move in waves, each step comes after the other in a predictable way and the soothing atmosphere soon turns bland. The disappearing act, in which a row of swinging distorting mirrors alternately multiplies and conceals the dancers’ reflection, is catching at first, but the illusion ends up redundant. More often than not, a spark of genius turns out to be a flash in the pan of lengthy passages, adding to the experience of polite ennui. The disappointment is all the more frustrating because Pontvianne shows fine skills in crafting of choirs of movement.
This year’s edition of Montpellier Danse could not but pay a tribute to the cornerstone of its forty-five-years-long history. As it so happened, my last day at the festival ended with a ceremony in memory of Jean-Paul Montanari in the Agora. For artists Fabrice Ramalingom, Mathilde Monnier, Salia Sanou and Babx, dancing came as a self-evident way to pay homage to a friend and mentor. But the most moving moment was the speech given by Montpellier mayor Mickaël Delafosse. Not only did he stress how Montanari played a major part as a performer in the 1980s French contemporary dance scene, but he also reminded us that thanks to him, more than six hundred choreographers have had their work showcased at Montpellier Danse. In honour of his achievements as an artist and director in Montpellier, the Agora courtyard has been renamed Cour Montanari.
Last but not least, this 45th edition reflected his commitment to bringing crises on stage by gathering artists from all over the world to break down artistic frontiers, especially when political and military conflicts reinforce geographical and cultural barriers. It also showed how challenging this commitment was: despite Batsheva cancelling their performances, the programme managed to line up works by UK-based Israeli choreographer and now director Hofesh Shechter and Iranian dancer-choreographer Armin Hokmi. Hearing this statement at the end of my four-day trip to the festival eventually made me consider the experience from the double perspective of witnessing both an artistic will and a manifesto.
If during his lifetime Montanari built up a rich individual legacy, he also carefully laid the groundwork for his replacement at the head of the festival. The ceremony was also a time to pass the torch on to Jann Gallois, Dominique Hervieu, Pierre Martinez and Hofesh Schechter. Quiet but enthusiastic, the new quartet of directors stood in the background. I look forward to discovering their own first move at Montpellier Danse next year. ●
Montpellier, France