Finished the larger gaps, jumps, arabesques, and pirouettes. The professional dancers were placed temporarily in the closet the leotard and the tights. The dance studios and rehearsal rooms have closed their doors, returning to their homes and their occupants as usual. Immersed in the doubt, without a specific purpose… For many of them, the future is still vague. And the tune they dance for a few months is not quite that of happiness.
Tristan Ihne, a dancer at the CCN-Ballet de Lorraine since 12 years and a union delegate SFA (Syndicat français des artistes-interprètes), had not ceased to dance more than three weeks since his twelve years. However, the outage was brutal for the 26 dancers of his company, which stopped working in march. They have still not regained their activity at a normal pace. “The dancers have a career to be very short, so it is frustrating as the situation,” he laments.
solo Dance
The containment has pushed a lot of dancers to return to their region or their country of origin. While they used to train in a group, the warm-up has therefore become more individual. Rather motivated in the early days of confinement, thanks to the prospect of return to work quickly, Tristan Ihne quickly realized that it was becoming difficult to ” keep the discipline “. In the Face of a confinement that dragged on, he admits to being a bit lax in his training daily : “When one is in the unknown, it is difficult to motivate yourself. “
Same thing for Émelyne Baulande, contemporary dancer, choreographer and creator of his own company, Artaniak. The break of the containment has not prevented it to continue to train, but it is hard to stay motivated when it heats up only one. And to make its stretch in a small space is far less rewarding than exercises in groups, in appropriate premises. “There have been ups and downs,” she admitted so. To stay in shape, dancing classes online have sometimes been put in place by the companies. But the corporate practices by video-conferencing does not fill quite the void, according to Émelyne. “Be alone, that’s good, but it lacks a complement, and the video, this is not the same thing. “
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If the containment has been a period of doubt for a lot of dancers, this was also an opportunity for them to reflect on their practice, or create, for some. Young dancers took advantage of the containment and the creation. Tristan Ihne, it took the opportunity to heal himself and force himself to rest. Émelyne specifies that the containment has also had positive effects for her. “It allowed me to ask questions and take advantage of this time to focus on what I like and what I want to do. It was a very good thing for that. A “true” return to self ” to regain his breath and avoid chasing too many projects at the same time.
financial Difficulties and inequalities
Before the start of the containment, Émelyne Baulande had bought a house in the Ardèche, to set up an artists ‘ residence. But faced with the necessity of doing any work, she had chosen to work a little more to pay for the renovations. Émelyne would therefore have had to spend the last few months as captain of the cabaret, well away from their usual environment, to obtain ” stamps are more important “. The containment has put a stop to all his plans. All of his dates were cancelled, which caused him to lose between 400 and 500 euros. “It was very complicated, it was not planned at all in relation to the work. “
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At the financial level, Tristan Ihne believes that the dancers of the ballets permanent, such as the CCN de Lorraine, were lucky, their salary being maintained. In these companies, the most worried are those with fixed term contracts, the future of which remains suspended to the evolution of the situation. But the greatest difficulty is the intermittent : “It was very complicated, many have not had news from their employer and were really into the blur. “
Émelyne, intermittent for the past six years, confirms ; the crisis has led to revise his will to belong to the system of intermittent employment. “I wanted to be intermittent in order to be recognized as an artist, but in reality you say “I’m not an artist, I am an intermittent”. “When the contract of an intermittent is not canceled, the solution proposed by the employers is often that of the deferral contract. But for Tristan Ihne, this solution is debatable : “They lose something, despite everything. “Rare are those to have benefited from the support of the State, he adds. But funds have been created and have received many requests. Émelyne has obtained the support of the State for his company Artaniak. But that seems to be most concerned about, it is above all the uncertainty. “I wonder what will happen later, we are swimming in the blur and it can be confusing. “
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the Other inequality between intermittents and employees, the medical follow-up. Several companies have set up remote monitoring by physicians, an opportunity to which do not have access to the intermittents. While a long period of rest can often lead to injuries in athletes.
Challenges
At the Ballet de Lorraine, funded primarily by grants, Tristan Ihne says that the company depends only marginally from the money brought by the ticket office. A “chance” at a time when sales are at zero and where the recovery is expected to be complicated. Because even if it is done quickly, the rooms may not be able to accommodate as many people as before. And there are many other challenges to face. The return in the dance studios, is being done gradually, often with small groups. With 26 dancers, quite a high number for a contemporary company, Ballet de Lorraine will be able to so that it is difficult to dance with all of his artists together on stage. At the time of the choreography in small groups are preferred, the creations, which began in march, so will be changed at the start of the year.
Since the end of the confinement and the (very) slow recovery of the activity, Émelyne Baulande, faithful to his decision to stop chasing after too many projects, has not sought to produce or to do a lot of dates. After having resigned from his post at the cabaret, she has performed only once with his company and has accepted a few performances for the month of September. But Émelyne was still busy, between workshops, auditions and projects. She wishes to put in place a project that will offer entertainment at a lower cost to small communities. The aim is to initiate the dance of people who have usually no or little access to culture.
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