El Colegio del Cuerpo (eCdC) was founded in 1997, in Cartagena de Indias by dancers, choreographers and pedagogues Álvaro Restrepo (Colombia) and Marie France Delieuvin (France). The space was created for children and the general public to find the opportunity to approach the expressive and artistic dimension of the human body, through contemporary dance.
eCdC is a cultural and an educative space – plural and democratic – that offers the opportunity of a new ethics of the human body, indissolubly connected to an aesthetic and artistic search; simultaneously associated with contemporary cultural, social, political and economic issues. eCdC achieves its mission through four working areas: Formation, Creation, Sensitivity and Diffusion, Investigation and Documentation.
During 15 years of uninterrupted work, approximately 8,100 children have participated in the programs of the institution; the great majority of them receiving a free access. Simultaneously, eCdC has contributed to sensitize children and teachers from educational systems in the world.
The artistic work created by the Directors of eCdC and the dancers of Compañía del Cuerpo de Indias, has been performed in Latin America, The United States, Europe, Asia and Africa.
A Rendez-Vous in Clementine Hunter’s African House, written and directed by Álvaro Restrepo, pays tribute to African heritage and the ethnic and cultural richness of Colombia. The piece features the music of Nina Simone, the great singer, pianist and civil rights activist.
Inspired by the work of Colombian-American choreographer and dancer Eleo Pomare, often called the angry black man of modern dance, A Rendez-Vous is an imagined meeting between famed black artists and activists. The Watermill Center’s African House, a replica of a shed on Louisiana’s Melrose Plantation where African American artist Clementine Hunter painted murals depicting plantation life, acts as a meeting spot between these figures.
The work is accompanied by the poetry of Aimé Césaire, black intellectual of Martinique and one of the parents of the important movement of “La Negritud”, and texts by the Afro-Peruvian composer and choreographer Victoria Santa Cruz.
In Process @ The Watermill Center invites the community to engage with our Artists-in-Residence on Saturday afternoons through open rehearsals, workshops, studio visits, lectures or artist talks.
Watermill’s mission is to provide artists and thinkers the opportunity to focus on the development of their work and practice. Artists-in-Residence have gone on to perform at venues and festivals including the New Museum, Roulette, PS122, American Realness, Clocktower Gallery, Performa, Vienna’s Donaufestival, Kampnagel in Hamburg, CPR – Center for Performance Research, and the Baryshnikov Arts Center.
November 10, 2018
photos © Maria Baranova-Suzuki
