Alban Richard / Quartet

In January 2023, Les Indépendances began a collaboration with the Centre Chorégraphique National of Caen in Normandy to support the development and touring of their creations, including projects by choreographer and director Alban Richard and the “Collection Tout Terrain.”

For this new piece, Alban Richard turns his atten­tion to the quar­tet for­mula, the addi­tion of four soloists whose scores coex­ist. This autonomy and jux­ta­pos­i­tion are also those of the DJ at his turntables, com­bin­ing music that was not inten­ded to coex­ist. In a cre­ation irrig­ated by the velo­city and dynam­ism of DJing, Alban Richard works on remix­ing ges­tures and move­ments: tak­ing up, quot­ing, past­ing, divert­ing, accel­er­at­ing, slow­ing down, repeat­ing, deform­ing into scratches, syn­co­pat­ing into micro-cuts. These are tools that the cho­reo­graph­er will apply to the per­formers’ bod­ies and voices, asso­ci­at­ing them with an aes­thet­ic of stut­ter­ing and focus­ing not on phras­ing but on the loop or micro-loop. At stake is the notion of a highly inhab­ited body, tra­versed by con­trary states, like those of people under the influ­ence of drugs inter­viewed by Amer­ic­an pho­to­graph­er Mark Laita. With Quar­tet, Alban Richard sees his cho­reo­graph­ic com­pos­i­tion as cine­mat­ic mont­age, guided by sequen­cing tech­niques and attent­ive to ques­tions of tem­por­al sequences and breaks. A work set in an indis­tinct but troubled time, where the sceno­graphy is inspired by the stage dir­ec­tions of Hein­er Müller’s Quar­tett (1980): “A salon from before the French Revolu­tion. A bunker after the Third World War”.

QUARTET
PREMIERE December 9th & 10th, 2025
at Comédie de Caen – CDN de Normandie (FRANCE)

Concept-cho­reo­graphy-com­pos­i­tion Alban Richard
Cre­ation and performance Chi­hiro Araki, Anthony Bar­reri, Zoé Lecor­gne, Aure Wachter
Assist­ant choreographer Daph­né Mauger
Music Simo Cell
Sound design Vanessa Court
Light design Nic­olas Bordes
Cos­tumes Fanny Brouste
Assist­ant Yolène Guais
Vocal and Eng­lish coach Deborah Len­nie

Pro­duced by the Centre cho­ré­gra­phique natio­nal de Caen en Normandie
Co-pro­duc­tion La Cité musi­cale-Metz (in progress)

Duration: 60 minutes

Website of the centre chorégraphique national de Caen en Normandie

Contact: Mathieu Hilléreau
mathieu@lesindependances.com