Photo: Interview with Annick Ouellet for TÈ BIC 

What is the choreographic-documentary approach?

Rhodnie Désir, choreographer and artistic director of RD Créations, has developed a new creative approach. It is called choreographic-documentary, a process that starts with an encounter and ends with a choreographic creation. These encounters take the form of interviews with those whom she calls "bearers of memory". These participants are specialists from all horizons: historians, ethnomusicologists, sociologists, teachers, social workers, psychologists, anthropologists, Creoleness writers and thinkers, geographers, politicians, lawyers, scientists... quite simply, citizens who share their history and their knowledge. These encounters allow the work to emerge from the collection of these testimonies. 

The fruits of these meetings nourish and inspire Désir who develops the accumulation of her new learning through movement. A movement that is first done rhythmically, in collaboration with a local musician, allows the essence of these accounts to be transmitted in the form of rhythm. Inspired by the musician's work, she then develops a collaborative artistic process in which each individual brings his or her own creativity and expertise to the work. In Rhodnie Désir's practice, oral tradition, like drums, carry messages; they embody the foundations of her artistic vision: body, knowledge, polyrhythm, circles, reconnection, spirituality, encounters, legacies.

Thus, this collaboration gives birth to a first gesture, resulting from this creative sharing. Then, in the form of choreography, Rhodnie Désir crystallizes, through the body, all these encounters and this musical collaboration. A new work thus sees the light of day. The gesture is therefore anchored in the terrain in which it was created, becoming both tribute and memory.