Quatuors
CREDITS
Created in 2025
Concept, choreography Nina Vallon
Original composition, setting of sound space Maxime Mantovani
Additional musical repertoire Ludwig van Beethoven, Quatuor N° 14 - Opus 131
musicians, string quartet Apolline Kirklar (violin), Rachel Koblyakov (violin) Julie Michael (alto), Alice Picaud (cello)
Assistant, Laban notator Sofia Cardona Parra
Dancers Margaux Amoros, Arielle Chauvel-Lévy Julie Compans, Martina Consoli Charlotte Grangeat, Asha Thomas, Justine Lebas, Lucie Vaugeois
Set designer Marta Pasquetti Costumes Aude Désigaux Lights Sabine Charreire
Communication manager Alek Kostic Administration, production managers Mélanie Fréguin, Guillaume Fernel Apprentices Malia Pouponnot and Marilou Leluherne
AGENDA
10 May 2025, Geneva, Switzerland, La Cité Bleue
28 May, 2025, Vanves, France, Théâtre de Vanves
3 December 2025, Suresnes, France, Ecole des Arts
9-10 January 2026, Reims, France, Le Manège scène nationale
April 2026, Germany, Frankfurt, Festival focus Swiss Bockenheimer Depot
April 2026, Germany, Dresden, Festival focus Swiss Hellerau
January 2028, Amsterdam, Netherlands, String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam
Production Overseas Culture Interchange & As Soon As Possible
Co-production ProQuartet - Centre Européen de Musique de Chambre, Le Manège scène nationale - Reims, Cité Bleue Genève, Le Pavillon Noir CCN d’Aix-en-Provence, le Ballet de l’Opéra National du Rhin, CCN
Supported by patronage of the City of Geneva, the Caisse des Dépôts, Adami, MMC - Maison de la Musique Contemporaine, Spedidam, Théâtre de Vanves, Césaré (Centre National de Création Musicale - Reims), CND - Centre National de la Danse, Pantin accueil en résidence longue, du Carreau du Temple, de La Ménagerie de Verre, La Pop, Studio ADC
ABOUT
QUATUORS, a choreographic work for a string quartet and eight female dancers, which opens a dialogue between Beethoven’s 14th String Quartet and an original piece by young composer Maxime Mantovani. The rereading of Beethoven’s 14th quartet will be operated through the kaleidoscope of movement, as the sonic result of a choreographed, danced imprint.
INTENTIONS
« Music has been at the core of my choreographic practice, since the very beginning and I’ve been wanting to create a choreographic piece based on Beethoven’s fourteenth quartet for several years now.
I imagine the work in two parts. The form that the Beethoven section will take, in terms of spatialization, is already quite clear: a classical quartet formation for the musicians and the dance that unfolds around them.
For the part devoted to the work of Maxime Mantovani, we’re still working on a way of upending the space completely and shifting the gaze towards other perspectives. The musicians will also be moving in space on specific sections. The idea is to let the music breathe, giving it space. I imagine some of the mouvements of the quartet being played without dance. To create real dialogue, real interaction between music and dance. Letting the audience enter the sound and the mouvement.
Beethoven composed this quartet when he had already been deaf for several years. It is his penultimate quartet, a work that requires endurance, with seven movements that follow one another without pause. As the piece progresses, the instruments go out of tune, dissonances emerge, but nothing stops them. The music follows its course, powerful and straightforward. The seven movements are very different from one another, requiring great rigor but also real risk-taking. It’s a challenge for the musicians, and it will be for the dancers too.
At first, I listened over and over to different interpretations of the quartet. Then I got the urge to dance it, to set it in motion... Then it occurred to me, as a revelation, that I would have to create this choreographic Opus.
It is always dizzying to tackle a work by a great composer like Beethoven, but it’s also infinitely inspiring and exciting! I’m excited at the perspective of immersing myself in it alongside Maxime Mantovani! I can’t wait for us to get to the heart of the matter and see what surprises are in store for us with this approach which, once again yet without being stale, associates music and dance, musical composition and choreographic writing. I wish to follow, like thread in the maze, the paths of Beethoven’s writing in order to transpose them into a dance that is organic, demanding and physically committed, intimately linked to the music.
It’s a rather classical approach, but one in which I always find great freedom in the writing, as well as a richness and a source of boundless inspiration. »
Nina Vallon, choreographer
© Mireille Huguet