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 post-1968 France and inspired by the multidisciplinary vision of American choreographer Alwin Nikolais, Lolita Danse sought to transcend individual identities and achieve "total and irrepressible free-dom" (Isabelle Bucklow). Their performances-which took place on the stages of major theaters as well as on street corners in France and abroad-combined multi-ple influences in a rich assemblage of gestures and sounds. Mestiza Estudio’s uncovering of the group’s archives in this book reveals its intact vitality. Hundreds of previously unpublished documents—notebooks, texts, letters, photographs—retrace ten years of collective imagination.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 studio’s 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 exits—everything 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. —Jerôme FrancSo, Lolita was without ego. In the vein of postmodern dance’s reverence for negation (as epitomized by Yvonne Rainer’s “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 Lolita’s kaleidoscopic and transversal approach with seemingly discordant genres and styles in music, fashion, and scenography all folded together. Over Lolita’s 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