(Article by Michele Fanni, with Marzia Garzetti. Translation by Christopher Dowling)

Antoine le Menestrel, born in Paris in 1965, is today one of the main performers of that complex artistic phenomenon which we call, often erroneously, danse escalade.

His vertical poetry is a universal language that can cross borders, cultures, and generations, questioning the very dynamics through which we interact with our surrounding environment, particularly with our urban surroundings.
Before affirming himself as a dancer, Antoine had been one of the most successful free climbers in France in the 1980’s (among his most important achievements: La rose et le vambire a Buoux, one of the first 8b in France; Revelations at Raven Tor, the first free solo 8a in the world, Samizdat at Cimai, the first on-sight 8a in the world…).
With the emergence of international competitions, he then discovered the world of route setting, becoming one of the first ouvreur de voie international d’escalade (international climbing route setter). Thanks to this experience he was drawn to the “dramaturgic” dimension of climbing, unexpectedly revealing his talent as a choreographer. From then on, the transition to dance was extremely short.

Not long ago with Marzia, my favourite performer, we were at Apt, not far from the legendary Buoux, to meet Antoine and interview him. The pleasant conversation that followed is presented in this piece.

For more information on Antoine’s artistic path you can visit his Company’s website: Compagnie Lezards Bleus

 

 

What influenced your climbing style to the point of transforming you into a vertical dancer? Was there anyone who inspired you?

Surely the opening of La rose et le vampire. There is a movement that makes turn around with your back against the wall: moving my head under the arm I understood that there was a space behind me with which I could interact. This was the first thing. The second was the setting of routes for the indoor climbing competitions. I was moulding the hooks and designing the movements for the climbers. One climbing route is already a choreographic act in itself with its own scripted moves, a dramaturgy…
Competitions is also performance, a performative act in which we find emotion, intensity, suspense. It was an important dramaturgic act during which I was interpreting the role of choreographer, while the athletes were the dancers.
Once in Bercy in 1988 I locked my knees in a hold and freed my hands, looking at the spectators upside down I made the noise of a cuckoo: everyone laughed and I discovered that there was a strong emotional relationship between climber and spectators.
Later on, in the 80s, I wanted to live on climbing, but in a different way compared to other sponsored climbers. For the first climbing exhibitions I was trying to create real authentic performances with a story. Patrick Berhault too, in those years, was starting to create performances with a Company called Roc in Lichen. I met the Company in 1987. They were the ones who taught me how to train as a dancer: the stretching, the warm-up, the flexibility, the build-up of the performance. It was mostly the meeting with the Company… Finally, very intimately I dreamed of becoming a painter. I never entered a painting school, so I told myself I would paint with my body on walls.

What do you mean when you talk about dramaturgy? When did you realise you were creating one?

Even when setting routes for competitions I had to create stories with spectacular movements, where climbers would not fall in the same spots, with changes in rhythm, slabs, overhangs… a narrative that would create suspense.

Why do you think danse escalade wasn’t born before the 80s? Who were the precursors to such a change?

Weren’t shamans totem dancers for example? Even in the 20s, the film Safety Last [by Harold Lloyd]: that for me was already danse escalade.

Yes, but before the 80s no one had ever recognised danse escalade as an artistic discipline…

Walking on the wall by Trisha Brown, on the façade of a theatre in New York in 1971: that was also a performance of dance escalade. Again, in the 50s, Gaston Rebuffat with his absail as Maurice Baquet was playing, I can’t recall what film…

Etoile et tempête?

Yes, those are the first experiments. After the 80s there have been many currents in the world of dancing that have explored different universes. I’m thinking of the French dancer Daniel Larrieu and his works with water, or Philippe Decouflé who worked with circus shows… There’s the encounter with theatre, martial arts, Isabelle Dubouloz, Pierre Douissant, Roc in Lichen with climbing…
That’s the first time that Roc in Lichen mentions danse vertical. They come up with the name danse vertical. There’s an appreciation of the movement which becomes more important than the peak itself. Patrick Edlinger climbs super fluidly, his manner of climbing is for him extremely important. Patrick Berhault starts coming up with movements that involve cross overs, with his feet over his head… The body is released, and it may be that, thanks to the appearance of competitions, we also have the appearance of performance. There were climbers that were going towards the competition, and climbers who were going towards dance.

Do you think there is an opposition between these two currents? Could dance be a reaction to a certain direction that climbing had started to take in those years?

I think that first of all there is a relationship with nature, with the mineral elements and the mountain, when we reduce this interaction with nature the movement becomes pure performance… I don’t think it’s a reaction, it’s more as though at a certain moment there was something like a tree trunk that divided into two branches. There’s a large branch that represents competition, 99,9% of climbers go into this direction, and the 0,1% goes towards performance… and I’m being generous! We live in a society that values performance and competition rather than the poetic act, in another society it could be different. Do you know parkour? In this moment it is going though what climbing went through thirty years ago. It’s a practice that involves the architectural and the urban element, and it is getting structured into a federation, with performances and competitions. They go hand in hand together. The performance is not a reaction to the competition. For me it wasn’t a reaction, it was a choice. There are people born to compete, and others who have a more artistic spirit. In practice, when we open the door we find a highway and a small path.

Were you influenced by French nouvelle danse?

I was influenced by the nouvelle danse which worked with martial arts, as it required a movements that wasn’t only aesthetic. It was a requirement tied to the engagement of the movement. In climbing too there is such a requirement for the movement: if we don’t do it well we fall or we struggle more than necessary. It’s not a movement that is beautiful simply for its beauty. It’s beautiful also for the mental and physical dedication that it requires.

In an interview you once said: “Climbing well is not a thing of quantity, but of intensity of ourselves in the movement. I climb well when I am totally present in this moment, when I have only emptiness and concentration inside me”. What is presence?

It’s not being elsewhere! It’s not having parasite thoughts, thoughts which are alien to the movement. I will give you some examples of parasite thoughts: thinking about the peak. If in the movement at the beginning of a route you are thinking of the peak you are not present in the movement you are undertaking. Presence in climbing is concentrating all thought and spirit in the movement that we are carrying out. Presence in climbing means being concentrated on the position, on breathing, on the engagement. For example a parasite thought is telling yourself: “I won’t make it”.
This is what it is for climbing. During a performance a leave space to the poetry of movement, the poetic intention. Whereas while climbing all my concentration is focused on the success of the movement, in a performance I need to give space to poetry.

 

 

In an interview you talked about the «political power of the opening». Can artistic climbing on city walls be the way for a future awareness towards our own daily actions? Is it possible today to imagine through this aesthetic point of view a reversal of our perspectives in everyday life?

Performances on urban walls change the way spectators look at the city. The wall stays the same, but the gaze changes.

Do you think it’s a change that leaves a mark on the spectator?

I think so. Some spectators told me that, after having seen a performance, they didn’t just see the wall anymore, but also the history that went with it…

Is it just the walls that change or also the gaze on the city?

Changing the walls is already something! Then we can change our gaze on the city, on life… it’s one of the roles of an artist: changing the view on the world, on one’s own environment. I wouldn’t know, we should ask the spectators if the way they look at the walls has changed, and if then the way they look at the city has also changed.

There is a word that I have always felt is very close to your artistic sensibility: revelation. What place does it hold in your vocabulary?

I like revealing some stories, even if imaginary, revealing some details. I feel very close to this word, it’s as if architecture were a choreographic score. Who can reveal a score? A musician. I reveal an architectural score, and I use my body as the instrument. I weave the score with my imagination.

Frank Zappa once said that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture” …

And I would like to dance with Frank Zappa!
Rimabaud instead used to say: “J’ai tendu des cordes de clocher à clocher / des guirlandes de fenêtre à fenêtre / des chaînes d’or d’étoile à étoile, et je danse.” [I have stretched ropes from belltower to belltower / flower wreaths from window to window, golden chains from star to star, and I dance.]
It’s a sentence for façade dancers… “la danse de guirlande”…
When you change your gaze on the city and on architecture, that’s when you start doing politics.
I think that thanks to street performances one can live better in their own city. I love walking in the middle of the road: in these performances it’s possible, there are no cars, and this is already enough to excite me. We live in a society where the city is now built especially for cars, the roads are made for cars, and walking in the middle of the road… it’s great! Also climbing on walls is forbidden by our society, but as part of a performance I can do it, I’m given the authorisation to do it. It’s interesting that within the framework of a performance we can do things that are impossible in any other moment. Laws that say “climbing is forbidden” become “climbing is allowed”.

Is there a ritual theme in your performances?

For me or for the spectator?

Through you, for the spectators.

Well actually I feel like a kind of vector. In the sense that the spectator lives an experience through me: they stay on the ground, down below, while I do things they could not do. I take them with me, and in this sense I am sort of poetic guide… I try.

Like a shaman…

Exactly. A bit like a shaman that transports spectators into their own universe, I use risk, the thrill of fear, not to be stuck in fear, but to capture the spectators and take them into the poetry. Fear is a force: dictators use it to subjugate the people, I use it to transport the spectator into my poetry. I am at the service of risk-taking. It’s important to take risks, and I am in charge of my own.

Is the subject of vectors tied to the previous one on changing one’s gaze?

An artist plants seeds and doesn’t know whether they will sprout or not. I don’t know how the spectator will live with these seeds. I know they take them with them because there are spectators who then talk again about them much later. I said I take some risks: I peacefully put my life on the line. If I make some mistakes I could die, this is true. But the way I do it is peaceful, poetic, I’m not looking for an exploit. I’m not doing it like Alain Robert who climbs solo for 300 metres…

Ignasi de Sola Morales wrote: «Void, then, as absence, and yet also as promise, as encounter, as the space of the possible, expectation. The indeterminate, uncertain is also the absence of limit, this almost oceanic sentiment which contains the expectations of mobility, vagrant roaming» What does the term void mean to you?

Yes, void is the space of the possible. I create void in different ways: for my concentration, as I was saying, and in this case, we are talking about Zen void. Void as in absence of thought so as to be entirely in the action. Then there is the void that allows one to accept new ideas…

Is there a connection with the absence of matter? Can emptiness turn into matter in this sense?

This is Zen, the relationship between the yin and the yang, matter is created from emptiness, and matter in turn creates emptiness. It’s what is discussed in the Tao Te Ching, the book by Lao Tzu: “la piece a des murs de matière mais c’est le vide qui fait l’usage.” [The room has solid walls, but it is the emptiness which determines their use.]
I could say that there are holds, but movement is created between holds. It’s the space between two holds which creates the movement. It’s in the movement that we create, but we rely on matter for the creation.
It’s a relationship: if everything is full there is no space. The sculptor builds the sculpture by creating emptiness in the matter.