Red Notes [transmission 2025]

A choreographic extract remodelled by the group La Nouvelle Vague, coordinator Pascal Bely, as part of the “Danse en amateur et repertoire” programme 2024/2025 (a programme created to assist and promote amateur dancing).

Transmission by Pierre-Emmanuel Langry, notator, assisted by c.c.i.n.p. Andy De Groat.

Presented on 14 June 2025, La Comédie de Clermont-Ferrand.

The piece when it was created

Red Notes

Firstly produced 1977 at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design Halifax (Canada)

Choreography: Andy De Groat

Piece for twenty art students

Music: Philip Glass

Original duration: 50 minutes

The group

La Nouvelle Vague (Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur)

Based in Marseille since its creation in 2019, Nouvelle Vague brings together 11 amateur dancers, all professionals in the early childhood field. As part of a training program in artistic and cultural awakening, the group met artists from all over the world, and the idea was born of imagining specific artistic projects around dance. These choreographic laboratories have given rise to hybrid performances, notably in nurseries, designed to awaken the very young. Pascal Bely leads the troupe.

The project

In deciding to perform Andy De Groat’s Red Notes (1977), with music by Philip Glass, the Nouvelle Vague dancers highlighted the similarities between the show and their professional practices in day-care centers. In other words: the concept of play at the heart of the instructions in this piece, emblematic of American post-modern dance; the autonomy each dancer needs to develop his or her own style; and De Groat’s preponderant notions of truth and freedom. The choreographer’s commitment to amateur dancers is also essential.

The performers worked on 3 extracts from this work based on walking, one of which is set to a text by the American writer Gertrude Stein, with Pierre-Emmanuel Langry, reader of the score of the piece transcribed into Laban notation by Noëlle Simonet and Vincent Lenfant, accompanied by Do Brunet, dancer and choreographer, co-commissioner of Andy de Groat’s repertoire.

Danse en amateur et répertoire is a program of financial support and coaching for groups of amateur dancers. It provides a space for those wishing to deepen their knowledge and practice of dance and its history. 

Laurent Barré
Head of Research and Choreographic Directories
Anne-Christine Waibel
Research Assistant and Choreographic Directories
+33 (0)1 41 83 43 96
danse-amateur-repertoire@cnd.fr 

More information: https://www.cnd.fr/en/page/323-danse-en-amateur-et-repertoire-grant-programme