A meeting of painting and dance, Signes is the culmination of a triple creative process initiated by the painter Olivier Debré and continued by choreographer Carolyn Carlson and composer René Aubry. In search of the unspeakable emotions of the sensitive world, Olivier Debré had long dreamed of an exhibition on the smile. It never saw the light of day, but the painter initiated a reflection on the Mona Lisa and its creator, Leonardo da Vinci. Then, abandoning these historical figures, he turned to the search for more timeless evocations of the smile that he translated into a series of paintings representing abstract landscapes inspired by different places of the world. These landscapes, true spatial architectures, where color is a subject in its own right, reveal an alchemy of forms and sensations all in fluidity.
From this series, Olivier Debré chooses with Carolyn Carlson seven paintings forming the moving elements of a set intended for dance. Much more than simple backdrops, they define the sequences of a poetic scenario where the choreographer drew from the visual material the dynamics inspiring the momentum of the bodies. Without trying to reproduce the painter’s purpose, she in turn translated into a dreamlike ceremonial the inner smile of beings, mysterious heroes of a journey touching the spiritual. René Aubry, Carolyn Carlson’s faithful collaborator, extended these meetings with music, like Baudelaire’s Correspondances. A work of art where movements, colors and sounds respond in a hymn to infinite things (…) which sing the transports of the mind and the senses. (Charles Baudelaire)
Signes, created by the Paris Opera Ballet on May 27, 1997 at Bastille, was performed by Marie-Claude Pietragalla and Kader Belarbi. This ballet was distinguished a year later by the Benois de la danse and the Victoires de la musique.
1: Signe du sourire
2: Loire du matin
3: Monts de Guilin
4: Les moines de la Baltique
5: L’esprit du bleu
6: Les couleurs de Madura
7: Victoire des signes