Lolita Danse

Active in Paris in the 1980s, Lolita Danse was a collective of ten artists who reject ed all hierarchy and fixed forms. They fused dance, music, lighting, and costumes in a dazzling experiment that blurred the boundaries between stage and life, dan cer and choreographer, performance and play. Influenced by the revolutionary spirit of post1968 France and inspired by the multidisciplinary vision of American choreographer Alwin Nikolais, Lolita Danse sought to transcend individual identities and achieve total and irrepressible freedom (Isabelle Bucklow). Their performanceswhich took place on the stages of major theaters as well as on street corners in France and abroadcombined multiple influences in a rich assemblage of gestures and sounds. Mestiza Estudios uncovering of the groups archives in this book reveals its intact vitality. Hundreds of previously unpublished documentsnotebooks, texts, letters, photographsretrace ten years of collective imagination. This first book dedicated to the collective invites us to discover the freedom, passion, and creative force that shaped the Lolita era. It also marks the birth of the Parisian studios publishing house, Mess. I entered a room, its ceiling too low for dancing, but lit as if for a show, with small light sources grazing the pale walls. I sat down on a chair facing what would become the stage. The music, the pro- jected images, the dancing, the entrances, the exitseverything came to life and ended too quickly. I remember feeling the importance of that moment. Together, they wrote a beautiful and important chapter in French dance in the 1980s and were able to bring a collective to life. Jerme Franc So, Lolita was without ego. In the vein of postmodern dances reverence for negation (as epitomized by Yvonne Rainers No Manifesto from 1965), shall we set out what else Lolita was not? Lolita . . . was not exclusive nor institutionalised, precious nor puritanical. . . Lolita was instead a melting pot of popular, concert and folk genres and traditions; a syncretism of Flamenco, Brazilian dances, Vendean dances, jazz dances, sardanas, Butoh, and Indian dances. And dance was but one facet of Lolitas kaleidoscopic and transversal approach with seemingly discordant genres and styles in music, fashion, and scenography all folded together. Over Lolitas ten years, their tours across France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Brazil only furthered their cultural klepto- mania. . . . They pushed the choreographic form to its limits. Isabelle Bucklow