Rachid Ouramdane is a French choreographer. Since 2016, he has been co-director with Yoann Bourgeois of the CCN2 (National Choreographic Centre in Grenoble). His work is often politically engaged, focused on interdisciplinary research and more recently oriented towards new works for big ensembles (Tout autour, Tenir le temps, Möbius). Rachid Ouramdane has also been an artist associated with Bonlieu (Scène nationale d'Annecy) between 2005 and 2015 and with Théâtre de la Ville in Paris between 2010 and 2015.
Laurine Mortha: Now that social and cultural activities are gradually restarting, tell us about how the pandemic has affected you...
Rachid Ouramdane: The pandemic has really challenged the way I produce and the way I create. On the production side, I was working on a piece in collaboration with The National Theatre of Japan, involving seven European dancers and seven Japanese dancers and due to take place in Japan. When this project was cancelled, I felt in the same situation as those companies who produce in one place in order to export their production elsewhere. I had to call into question the way I build projects, because a significant part of my work over the past years is based on international cultural exchanges. Of course, mobility and international openness are important values to share and understand the diversity of cultures. But this sudden ban on travel put strain on the way I work – as I speak to you, I can’t gather with all my collaborators who are located in different European countries. On the creation side, the concept of contact is obviously very important and besides, for several years now, I have been working increasingly with large ensembles. For this reason also, to be required to stay at a distance has felt like a kind of violence. I had the feeling that my tools and my knowledge had been temporarily confiscated. I was forced to reposition myself.
Has this crisis been an opportunity to think or get inspired?
I felt as if I were having a double life. On the one hand, I experienced a real earthquake in terms of project management because as head of a choreographic centre, I had to work hard to implement work-from-home tools, suspend or cancel projects, rethink productions. This work has been very demanding because our partners, notably freelancers, were facing real difficulties. On the other hand, I stopped travelling and spent time at home with my family, surrounded by nature. Immobility enabled me to observe nature and seasons. This personal “breathing space” enabled me to project myself and reconnect with my imagination. However, I think we should remain humble when we talk about the “world after coronavirus”. I am convinced that what we are going through will transform our imagination and I am curious to see how the absence of contact will impact our bodies and minds. But it is too early to tell because everything that affects the body takes time, like a long sedimentation. I, too, take a long time to produce: what I am creating today has actually been germinating for ten years.
On what are working at the moment and what will be taking place in the summer?
Today, I am working on two creative areas: open-air performances and smaller forms. In July, I will take part in an event called La Grande Balade [“The Great Walk”], in collaboration with Scène Nationale d’Annecy. It will be a circuit with open-air performances in an environmentally responsible spirit. My participation will be part of a larger project Corps Extrêmes [“Extreme Bodies”], my next piece on extreme sports, to be performed hopefully in theatres in Spring 2021. Beyond the spectacular aspect of these extreme practices, I am interested in what it tells one about the individual. When you come closer to these sportsmen and sportswomen, you discover that their performance is just an epiphenomenon of a more fundamental search : these are not crazy people who play with their lives, but people who are asking questions about the boundaries of their freedom. Where can one still exist and how can one cross spaces? This thought, which is both ecological and intimate, will have even more sense after the Covid crisis.