Les Indes Galantes (The amorous indies), is an opera-ballet created by Jean Philippe Rameau in 1735. He was inspired for one of the dance by tribal Indian dances of Illinois performed by Michigamea chiefs, in Paris in 1725.
Clément Cogitore adapts a short part of the ballet by mobilizing a group of Krump dancers, an art form born in Los Angeles black ghetto in the 1990s. Its birth occurred in the aftermath of the death of Rodney King and the riots, as well as police repression it triggered. Amidst this coercive atmosphere, young dancers started to embody the violent tensions of the physical, social and political body.
Both the tribal dance performed in Paris in 1725, and the rebellious Krump dancers of the 1990s shape a reenactment of Rameau’s original libretto, staging young people dancing on the verge of a volcano.
Director: Clément Cogitore. 2017, 6min., HD color, France. Experimental. No dialog.
Clement Cogitore (1983, France) lives and works in Paris. After completing his studies at the Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Fresnoy he directed his first short film, CHRONIQUES (2006), and presented VISITÉS (2007) at the Locarno International Film Festival. The medium- length film AMONG US (2011) was awarded the European Grand Prize for a First Film in Vevey (Switzerland) and Best Film at the Belo Horizonte Festival (Brazil). Cogitore’s documentary BIELUTINE – IN THE GARDEN OF TIME was selected for Quinzaine at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, his first feature fiction film, THE WAKHAN FRONT, premiered at La Semaine de la Critique in Cannes, where it won the Gan Foundation Award. It went on to screen at numerous festival and receive several awards.
Interview:
http://www.fipresci.org/festival-reports/2015/cannes/rationality-put-to-the-test