Interview Yannick Lebrun and Annabel Guérédrat

INTERVIEW with Yannick Lebrun & Annabel Guérédrat

TOUT-MONDE AMBASSADOR

INTERVIEW

Yannick Lebrun

Tout-Monde Ambassador

Dancer at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

@yannicklebrun

with

Annabel Guérédrat

Choreographer and Performance Artist

@annabel_gueredrat

INTERVIEW WITH TWO CARIBBEAN PERFORMERS:

YANNICK LEBRUN AND ANNABEL GUEREDRAT

February 12, 2021

By Vanessa Selk

Transcript & translation by Elisa Boullé

©toutmondefoundation

The TOUT-MONDE FOUNDATION is particularly honored to welcome its first Cultural Ambassador, Yannick Lebrun, the French Guianese dancer from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. As the First Tout-Monde Cultural Ambassador, Yannick Lebrun's role is to carry and represent the power and beauty of Caribbean culture and arts abroad, in particular in the U.S., and to accompany and support the Tout-Monde Foundation's projects and artists. For his first interview with us, we asked him to identify an artist of the Foundation he did not know beforehand, to engage in dialogue. He selected the work of Martinican choreographer and performance artist Annabel Guérédrat, one of the participating artists of our HOMO SARGASSUM Project.

In this interview, moderated by our Executive and Artistic Director Vanessa Selk, who has roots both in French Guiana and Martinique, the artists will reveal how they have been dealing with the pandemic lockdown, how they relate to ecology and collective healing, and how they see the future of performing arts.

Yannick Lebrun is a professional dancer from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He was born and raised in French Guiana where he trained as a classical dancer at the Adaclam School under the guidance of Jeanine Verin. He was discovered as a young dance talent by the visiting Alvin Ailey School when he was fifteen years old. Two years later, in 2004, he moved to New York to join the Alvin Ailey Junior Company, and only a few years later, he joined the official Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. He has been living in New York City ever since, but the sounds, the colors and the diversity of peoples and cultures of French Guiana continue to resonate in his work. Yannick Lebrun was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2011, and highlighted as one of the 50 most talented French people in the United States in France-Amérique magazine in 2013. In 2019, he choreographed Saa Magni, his first work for Ailey II. His last performance with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was shortly before the lockdown in March 2020, on an American tour, but he had the opportunity to present an outdoor solo performance for the Kaatsbaan Summer Dance Festival in September 2020.

Annabel Guérédrat is a choreographer, a performance artist, and a certified practitioner in American bodymind centering technique release. Born in Noumea, New Caledonia (a French territory in the Pacific), she lives and works in Martinique, where she founded Artincidence dance company in 2003. She also co-founded and co-curated, with Henri Tauliaut, the FIAP Martinique (Festival International de l'Art de la Performance), the first international festival of performance art in Martinique. Initiated to various practices reaching from Afro Brazilian dances, to breathing and yoga techniques, her artistic work addresses African heritage and ecofeminism, inspired by the movements of Afro-punk and techno-shamanism. She shares her practice with discriminated groups such as victims of violence, prostitutes or detained teenage mothers. Through her latest performance I’M A BRUJA, she interprets a modern Afro-Caribbean witch experiencing various afro-futurist rituals. She often performs in duo with her partner and artist Henri Tauliaut. Together, they performed a series titled Fertility Ritual and a short film titled Foetales, both dealing with Sargassum and represented in the HOMO SARGASSUM video of the Tout-Monde Foundation.

Vanessa Selk: Yannick, as the Tout-Monde Ambassador, your role is to accompany and support the Foundation's artists and projects. You decided to highlight the work and have a conversation with Annabel Guérédrat. Tell us why you felt attracted to her work and how it resonates with your own.

Yannick Lebrun: First of all, I would say that to be able to exchange, share with a Caribbean black woman, a woman of color who engages in artistic projects, was important to me, as I think that the place of women is important in this world. I was also looking forward to discovering something that is not in my daily life, which is completely different, as Annabel is really specialized in performance, in creation, in engaged art. It inspires me also because I see a lot of people doing research work in New York about such questions, but to be able to exchange with someone from overseas who has the same work was very important to me.

VS: Yannick, your last performance with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was during your American tour shortly before the lockdown in March 2020, though you occasionally could perform outdoors. How has the lockdown of performing arts been affecting you and your work? Did it change your perspectives on your work as a dancer?

YL: When you spend over twelve years in a Company, you have a routine: at Alvin Ailey, we rehearse this American tour every year and all of a sudden when everything stops and we are told « go home, it's all over », it's a bit overwhelming; we had to readapt and reinvent ourselves. Thus, I had the opportunity to go back home to French Guiana for three months, to see my family again, to rediscover my nature, my beautiful forest and it inspired me a lot, it even set me free. I was able to meet people and artists, and to choreograph a solo which I entitled « Human». I took portraits to illustrate this solo in Saint-Laurent Du Maroni in French Guiana at the transportation camp and I choreographed it based on a beautiful music by Blick Bassy, a Cameroonian singer who lives in France. It’s a short solo, but which allowed me to reveal myself, to show myself as an individual dancer when I was back in upstate New-York. So, in spite of being difficult, this lockdown allowed me to open myself to other things and to be able to find myself again.

VS: Annabel, you too, as an artist and an organization, the FIAP, you were, as many performing artists, deeply affected by the world lockdown because of the pandemic. How did you continue your work and resilience, as an individual performance artist and through the FIAP? And how do you see the future of performing arts?

Annabel Guérédrat: The word « resilience » resonates well with what I've been through. At the beginning, to avoid being in a submitted position and to undergo this situation of health crisis, I quickly had to consider that my home became an artist residency, a returning-home residence. And when I say my home, I mean not only the space in which we live, but also the coming back to oneself, as Yannick said, which means going through a work that can be of cellular memory, of internalization. I also developed what I call “strategies of emancipation of the subject”, which means social strategies because I'm part of a live show: I don't do solo work, I have a team behind me, that follows me, and I love it. For example, I set up a Whatsapp group of somatic practices for Martinican dancers and professionals to continue the practice of care, and to exchange on our feelings. I initiated practices that allow a form of mutualization, solidarity and that aim at remaining connected. That was the first lockdown. Then, for the second one, I started a more creative work with Woman Part Three which is a trio with Ana Pi and Ghyslaine Gau on Afro-feminism, by working on online information collection and archiving. Thanks to new technologies, we have been able to keep the bond and at the same time maintain a state of sorority, of porosity, through this possibility of giving offerings to each other. Starting December, the situation was much more privileged in Martinique than in most of the world because the theaters reopened, the National Scene reopened. In January, I was able to welcome Ana Pi and Ghyslaine Gau in Martinique, to do a real residency in a dance studio, get together, and start looking for ways to work on our future creation, which is scheduled for July on the National Scene.

On the one hand I had the feeling that we were on a slowed down time, a bit like when I went on a shaman retreat in Canada and at the same time there was like an acceleration of time: I had a lot of solicitations via Zoom, requests for trainings, experience sharing, to participate in round tables, conferences, to write articles etc. It was interesting to see how the virtual took over as it put us more in touch, more in resonance and more at work.

I see the future with a new horizon, new perspectives, such as dancing more outdoors like the magnificent solo performances of Yannick Lebrun. I also see giving more priority to our bonds, mutualization, artistic collaborations. And then my desire would be to get out of a pyramid hierarchical relationship, even between creators and artists or between performing arts programmers and artists, to get together in a more horizontal, more equitable relationship, as we can integrate more into work our homes, our family life, which brings us closer and makes us more human. More humanity in our relationships with others can professionally transform relationships that so far have been quite hierarchical.

VS: Yannick, as Tout-Monde Ambassador, it also means that you share and represent our 3-E values: Education, Ecology and Equal Rights. Let's focus on Ecology: when you spent some time during the lockdown in French Guiana with your family, you seemed to be strongly immersed in the natural environment, performing a series of very powerful dances and choreographies close to the ocean, the garden, the rain forest. How did this natural and local immersion in the very lush and green Guianese environment influence your practice, compared to your work in a New-York based company?

YL : Yes it's a huge contrast! So when you spend 17 years growing up in French Guiana, you are really in a unique environment; you grow up in a space that is so rich and when you suddenly arrive in New York and you find yourselves surrounded by buildings. Wow! The difference is huge and even though I've always had this appeal, I go back to French Guiana at least once a year to recharge my batteries. For nature inspires me enormously and nature is soothing. I love to dance at home, outdoors, because it makes others want to discover French Guiana, it shows others my environment, it also allows the people who follow me to discover me as Yannick Lebrun from French Guiana. It's true that I spent a lot of time with the Alvin Ailey company being in this rather American dynamic but I don't forget that I come from French Guiana, South America, and show the authenticity of my culture. Even when I’m in New York, to be able to show objects or little reminders of French Guiana means a lot to me. Ecology obviously has an impact, I think as a dancer I have to continue to be involved in this cause which is essential because for me protecting nature is key every day.

VS: Annabel, you, too, are strongly connected to an ecological work and you consider yourself an eco-feminist. Can you explain exactly what this means for you and how ecology impacts your artistic practice and how you translate it to techno-shamanism? How are your performance series, "Foetales" and "Fertility Rituals" echoing these concerns?

AG: There are a lot of possible definitions of eco-feminists. As I am also, above all, an artist and not a militant, eco-feminism for me is making love to nature; in other words, to become nature, as opposed to a patriarchal system that is sexist, anti-erotic, racist, capitalist. When you immerse yourself in nature and live extreme body experiences such as not eating or drinking for five days in the forest under a tent to be able to receive messages, while being followed by a medicine woman, you experience a shamanic vision, to connect to one’s sacred eagle which opens the door to the East, the first gate on the road to healing in Native American education. It's an intellectual and physical process, which implies all our corporality, a total body and it is perhaps my approach to eco-feminism.

Regarding Foetales and Fertility Rituals, these are the performances that I realized with Henri Tauliaut, who is a visual artist from Guadeloupe, my life companion and the co-curator of our FIAP Martinique. These series allowed us to merge as if we were only one body through camouflage outfits: we made our bodies swing in symbiosis in an embryonic state, merging with the nature, the algae, the ocean. It is an experience that appeals to all our senses that somehow re-humanizes us while focusing on our vulnerability, our body. In the series on the Sargassum-algae that invades the Martinican coast, titled Ensargasse-moi, I was more in an intuitive feeling, as if I really wanted to camouflage myself inside, to enter into the Sargassum, like a witch.

When I self-proclaim myself a techno-witch, in the lineage of Ana Mendieta, it’s because I merge new technologies, multimedia, video etc. with sacred, ritualistic acts, thus creating a link between ritual, sacredness and new technology. At a time of a pandemic, it is even more important for us to return to our rituals while being connected to tomorrow’s world. That's what I call a techno-shamanic or futuristic Afro-Caribbean world.

VS: You are both deeply influenced by Afro-Caribbean music, literature and culture, but also very open-hearted to other influences, such as electronic music for Yannick and the Afro-Punk movement for Annabel. How do you express these synergies and what do they mean to you?

YL: When you grow up in an environment with so many different communities, with music that comes from Africa, Asia, Europe, and our Native American traditions, you actually grow up with this understanding of the world. I am part of a territory that encompasses so many different cultures, different music, that I am proud to carry within me. When I listen to music I don't just listen to R&B and Soul. What touches me is the music of the world. The music of Africa, the music of the Caribbean, a little bit of everything and even electronic music and I try to incorporate it into my work to be inspired by all this music to be able to create something more authentic.

AG: I think there is also this desire to take care of oneself and of others, to be in self-healing attention but also in healings of collective benefit. Collective healing is present when we organize a festival, or when we curate in the sense of curare i.e. to take care of the other. This can take place where I am located, i.e. in the Caribbean region, or through a science-fiction perspective which will be, as Yannick says, more porous and which includes a Tout-Monde, or a Caribbean archipelago, which is a form of relative insulation connected to the Tout-Monde, to reflect Edouard Glissant’s thought. With Henri Tauliaut we like to be able to create new worlds, new planets to be able to heal ourselves while being connected to our orishas and to our cellular memory, never forgetting where we come from, at the micro level, and at the same time be ready for this world at the macro level. And it's very much related to dance, there is this back and forth movement, expansion, condensation of the cell.

VS: Thank you for your beautiful and thoughtful answers. You also had a few questions to ask each other. Feel free!

Yannick Lebrun to Annabel Guérédrat: When you left Nouméa to move to Martinique, how was the transition from the Pacific to the Caribbean?

AG: Both my parents are from Martinique and my father was a research oceanographer in Nouméa where I was born. We did not immediately return to Martinique: we first moved to Congo- Brazzaville at Pointe Noire and then to Senegal, with one year of transition in Paris before relocating ourselves in Martinique. So, the passage from the Pacific to Africa and then to the Caribbean world was a long journey, and when I arrived in Martinique I was already 10 years old. I have been able to digest all these journeys thanks to dance as my parents enrolled me in modern jazz classes in middle school and I continued until high school. It is through the expression of dance, learning to be free in my body that allowed me to consider these previous trips as a richness rather than a break, because of not having been rooted to the Martinican land. When I went to Paris for my graduate studies it took a while for me to reconsider Martinique as my own land. But she called me back through dance, through artist residencies while I was studying history. All these journeys gave me the desire to continue to travel, not to get stuck in one territory. But it is also important to live a territory to the fullest because too many trips abroad can make you lose the connection with the territory where you chose to live. The real anchorage to Martinique happened with my encounter with Henri Tauliaut because it immersed me in the world of the visual and performing arts of Martinique, and it really made me want something authentic for Martinique.

Annabel Guérédrat to Yannick Lebrun: Do you plan to go back to live in French Guiana and create a dance school or a company there to devote yourself to the transmission of dance to the new generations of Guianese?

YL : Transmission is really important for me and this is the reason why I am always connected with associations and dance schools in French Guiana whether virtually now, or before when I had to go to French Guiana for trainings to support Jeanine Vérin, the President of the confederation and of ADACLAM, where I started when I was 9 years old. But I also collaborated with other teachers who work on the territory as they called on me during my travels. As far as really moving back to French Guiana is concerned, it's not my priority for the moment. It is quite complicated for me to consider a return to French Guiana in order to build a school or a company, it's going to ask a lot if I do it; it would be a real challenge and I still prefer to lead an international life for now. But to keep the link with the younger generation, yes, always.

AG to YL: Do you think that dance heals the soul as Katherine Dunham thought when she intuitively went to Haiti?

YL: It's a beautiful question: yes, dance heals the soul. I realize day after day the implications of being part of the Alvin Ailey company that is so historical and important in the world, and not only in the United States. When we perform, in particular ballets like Revelations, that is inspired by Afro-American culture and relates to American spiritual moments like Baptism, the Church, the Gospel tradition and Black spirituality, it transmits a lot of emotions beyond American roots. So when I dance Revelations or other ballets from the choreographer Alvin Ailey who founded this company in 1958, whether I dance in Paris, Brazil or Denmark, I see people applauding and even waiting for us at the end of the show to tell us how much they have been touched by this performance. Yes, dance heals the soul, it heals my soul. Whether it's Alvin Ailey ballets, or when I go to other performances and see other creations on videos, even videos of children or younger generations on social networks, it moves me. Dance is particularly healing during the pandemic: art should be considered part of our mental health. People tend to think that dancers, artists need to step aside and wait during the pandemic. But we artists, dancers, people who are part of the creative world, are important because we bring hope and also, we make people feel better and that's part of our mental well-being. People who work in the economic world need art. One day I met someone after a performance who said: "My family came to see you dance because the doctor recommended that they go see a ballet by Alvin Ailey." It is extremely moving to hear that there are people coming and it is part of their therapy to see bodies in motion. This is very important, thank you Annabel for your question, there are people who have had horrible moments in their lives, moments where nothing goes right and who need to see dance shows.

YL to AG: What is your biggest dream ?

AG: My wildest dream is that we move into a new world. One that would no longer be racist, neither sexist, nor anti-erotic, normative heterosexual, without all these discriminations. It would mean to invent a new planet. It's not about reinventing ourselves anymore, it's about moving into a world where we Black people feel totally safe, where we feel empowered, respected, we can gain in dignity, and I think that is very important in relation to our community. I dream of much more equity and respect for nature because it's a way to respect our own nature. I imagine a world like the planet of Coline Serreau in the beautiful green where we all come back to the fundamentals of life and we recreate the bond and we are really in self-love and love for others. I dream of a world like that.

VS: Thank you both for this wonderful exchange. I hope we can reconnect soon in the real world, maybe for a collaborative performance!

AG: Thank you for the invitation, Vanessa, and Yannick I’m really glad to have met you. I hope to see you in Martinique.

YL: Your words enriched me, thank you very much. It would be healing for me to visit Martinique to see all the work and creations there.