Both Sarah Murphy and Olivier Coeffard are keeping the (heart)beats of the Annapolis Royal Dance Festival | Cultural Festivals | Halifax, Nova Scotia
SArah Murphy and Olivier Coeffard know better than most that part of the dance begins long before the feet touch the floor. The movement starts not at the ankle, nor at the foot, nor at the waist. It’s a twinge of an idea that comes before a muscle contraction. But sometimes, it starts even further back: Take the untitled piece the pair will be workshopping this weekend Annapolis Royal Dance Festivalwhich began with scissors pirouetteing scraps of paper, an accidentally found poem serving as the first step.
“We played with a letter that Olivier wrote: He wrote a letter to love. We took it and cut it. And we took words out of it, and we created movement in the words, and we’ve been manipulating the phrases,” Murphy says. Coeffard adds, “I’m questioning the relationship I had with love and why it was complicated—or just a lack of understanding. exactly where we were going. I talked to Sarah about it as soon as I arrived, without saying I wanted to use it for work… I said, ‘Sarah, I have to tell you something. It’s personal. I don’t know if it’s okay.’ And so we talked about it and then one day in the studio she brought it up again and I reread the letter – and we shared it and picked out words like that.”
This is far from the pair’s first collaboration (pre-pandemic, they were roommates as they took over Europe’s dance scene) but it’s the first time they’ve worked together in five years and the reunion was remarkable as they spent a number of days hot summer days preparing this new piece for the 2022 FODAR festival as artists-in-residence. When The Coast reaches them by phone to discuss what they’ll be performing, it’s mid-rehearsal at the Granville Ferry Community Hall , with the Atlantic Ocean as a backdrop.
Untitled – which Murphy and Coeffard will debut on July 22 at 1 p.m. as part of FODAR’s studio on display in St Luke’s Church Hall it’s not your only chance to see them in action this holiday: Saturday, July 23 The first program features both dancers in an ensemble piece and Murphy in a solo number. It takes place at 2pm at the King’s Theatre. There’s also a full roster of world-class talent from the Halifax dance scene and beyond, who will be performing a mix of world premieres and critical favorites on stages around Annapolis Royal (see the full festival schedule here).
But with the untitled, work-in-progress, there’s a “roundness” as Murphy describes it: “Now that I’m getting older, I’m quite interested in the idea of sharing the work rather than just performing and impressing people: ” Watch do my tricks.’ There’s kind of breaking down the fourth wall and kind of removing some of the patriarchal sensibilities that come with presentational theatre,” she says. “You let the audience in, you’re all on the same level.”
Adds Coeffard: “It’s like a drink: your body will get the vitamins it needs and reject the others. And art or dance is the same: you will look at the work and get what you need to get. And then that will be it. The rest will pass you by [by]the rest of you won’t understand—and you don’t need to.”