The other day I posted about one of my favorite very intimate performances at the Live Arts & Fringe Festivals… and today I’ll tell you about my favorite very public one: Sylvain Émard‘s “Le Grand Continental”, which took place at the foot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Here are some images from this unique event…
This large scale outdoor performance involved over 150 Philadelphians… and much like my How Philly Moves project, it didn’t require any professional performance experience – all were welcomed to participate if they loved to dance.
I got to the show early in order to spend some time with the performers…
… who were pretty excited about the press coverage that the piece had gotten.
Julian, who was stage managing the whole thing, had specifically suggested that I might like to check out the scene in the green room…
… where the many different participants who had been rehearsing together for months were hanging out.
Julian was of course right… he’d also helped out at one of the How Philly Moves community photo sessions,
where there was a similar bringing together of Philadelphians from all over the city…
… as they prepared to share their love of dance, each in their own way…
… sometimes very shiny sparkly ways.
As the participants prepared…
… it was clear to see the value and affirmation that photography brought, both in looking at pictures from the prior day’s performance…
… and in posing for snapshots with friends participating in the piece.
Some people knew other folks participating in the piece beforehand…
… but as everyone piled in for photos together…
… and continued to share smiles and laughter…
… it seemed that everyone became good friends by the end of the rehearsal process.
There were pockets of quiet where smaller groups gathered…
… all in good spirits…
… but trying to stretch in a room with 150 people packed into it is crowded. Not to mention an intensely cluttered environment to be shooting in (I love how she’s lit in this frame, but that chair in the background is killing me…)
… so I crawled around on the floor, trying to carve out some clearer portraits amidst the lively chaos…
… as everyone else kept shooting too…
… it was great energy all around..
With so many beautiful faces, my brain struggles to keep up, and I was mortified to call Laura here by the wrong name for a second…
… did I mention that it was crowded?
As show-time drew near,
everyone gathered around to hear a few words from the choreographer Sylvain…
… who self-depreciatingly gave all of the credit to the participants and the assistants…
… like Sarah who was one of several local professional dancers who’d been recruited to help run the rehearsals…
… clearly everyone enjoyed working with them.
Soon Laura and Julian let everyone know that it was almost time…
… and as Julian oversaw the formation…
… everyone lined up, ready to go.
As Julian went to check out how the scene was looking at the bottom of the stairs…
… everyone stood by in excited anticipation…
… waiting for the sign to go!
The friendly faces waiting at the bottom of the Art Museum steps included a few that I’d last seen in W. Africa during my time with Mercy Ships…
and all sorts of excited cheerleaders…
… and a really receptive audience.
The dancers started filing in as the piece started…
… unlike How Philly Moves where I give the dancers no direction, and each moves in their own way, here all of these dancers had spent all summer learning Sylvain’s choreography….
… which a friend described as something like a “modern contemporary line dance” but I’m not quite sure that that quite explains it…
… the art museum steps were packed with spectators…
… and the crisp blue sky made for a gorgeous day.
My friend Bethany was one of the other professional performers…
… but much like in How Philly Moves, each one of these participants was perfect.
The piece was a good length…
… and as the dancers moved through their formations…
… it was definitely quite an event, packing the front of the PMA.
Pretty much everyone there was documenting the event, so if you do some image searches for “Le Grand Continental” you’ll probably find a billion. Although you may have to specify “+Philadelphia”, as Sylvain’s done this piece in several cities.
I’m not sure who was having more fun, the performers or the audience…
… but it was a good thing that there was a slow moment in the choreography where they could catch their breaths…
… before resuming the dance…
… where some inviting gestures seemed to foreshadow the audience participation that was to come…
Hey, that’s Jacelyn from MelissaDiane! She and Kristen shared some gorgeous work at the special benefit concert that I organized at Studio 34 a while back.
The piece went into it’s final segments…
… and ended with a little bow…
… but it didn’t stop there. Much like Gabrielle Revlock and Nicole Bindler‘s “I Made This For You” that I participated in a while back, this piece ends with a dance party…
… where the audience is invited onstage…
… to join in a celebration…
… and more dancing.
When you see all of these laughs…
… and beautiful smiles…
… it’s just a reminder that this is what our bodies are made for…
… we are made for movement…
… and all this time that we spend in front of computers (ahem… like right now as I type this or as you watch this) may be great for stimulating our brains…
… but we also need to shake things up and cultivate real face to face time with our neighbors, and take good care of our bodies for the rest of this dance of life…
So now that I’m done with this post, I’m going to follow this young man’s lead and do a handstand to get the blood moving, and run an errand outside to enjoy some fresh air. If a handstand or arm-balance sounds out of reach for you, come join me for some yoga at Studio 34 (Thanks to them, I can do all sorts of stuff that I couldn’t do when they opened four years ago…) – and in the meanwhile, share this post if you enjoyed it, then get up from this machine, do a quick stretch and take a nice deep breath or two of fresh air. Enjoy!
Find more images from this series and order prints in the JJ Tiziou community archive.
