Opening French Doors

“It’s like the Oscar of contemporary choreography,” says performing arts presenter Jordan Peimer, of the Prix d’Auteur, the award handed out by the French biannual dance competition called Rencontres Choreographiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis.

That’s not a name that exactly rolls off the tongue, and the competition is more commonly referred to as Bagnolet, after the city at the end of Paris’s No. 3 Metro line that has been sponsoring a biannual festival of Prix d’Auteur winners for the last 12 years.

Whatever you call it, says Peimer, it’s an opportunity for established and emerging artists to be “propelled to the next level.” The prizes, primarily funded by the French government, include a grant of 100,000 francs (approximately $20,000), travel fare to the festival and the chance for international recognition and bookings.

Past Rencontres winners from North America have included the late Canadian choreographer William Douglas and, representing New York, Lucy Guerin and John Jasperse, who were both subsequently invited to perform at London’s prestigious venue the Place. Guerin, who danced with Bebe Miller, went on to win a Bessie, while Jasperse recently returned from a two-month European tour, including stops in Germany and Slovenia.

Next Friday and Saturday, for the first time ever, West Coast dance troupes will have a “platform” in the competition.

The event, called DanceWest and produced under the auspices of L.A.’s Dance Kaleidoscope, will showcase eight choreographers, and their companies, from Seattle, the Bay Area and Southern California. Three of the ensembles will be making local debuts; seven of the eight works presented will be local premieres. Ultimately, each company will be competing with approximately 300 others, who will be performing at 36 platforms in cities in 15 countries. Only 15 to 20 will be awarded prizes and invited to the French festival, which takes place next May.

“It’s a great chance for choreographers to get together and see each other’s work, as well as a way to give a boost to dance in this city,” says Peimer, who is assistant program director at the Skirball Cultural Center and a board member of Dance Kaleidoscope, as well as coordinator of DanceWest.

It’s through Peimer’s efforts that the L.A. platform was established. New York City has participated since 1988, and Austin, Texas, sponsored a platform beginning in 1993. Between them, they attract entrants from the middle United States and the Eastern seaboard. But the festival had no presence in the far West until Peimer, who was attending a conference in Seville, Spain, met Lorrina Niclas, the director of the competition.

“They [basically] hadn’t found the right person or means to organize the L.A. platform, so I was recruited in the spring of 1995,” Peimer explains. “That fall, Lorrina visited L.A. and I then tied in Dance Kaleidoscope, which is still raising money to help dancers pay their way to the platform.”

The DanceWest platform competitors were chosen from a pool of 36 applicants. Peimer sent out hundreds of notices, called presenters to spread the word, and had postings on the Internet. Choreographers from Hawaii to Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona were called upon to submit audition tapes to the festival’s 40-member board in France.

The board then narrowed the entries to eight companies: 33 Fainting Spells , and the Pat Graney Company from Seattle; Nancy Karp + Dancers of Emeryville, Calif.; Joe Goode Performance Group of San Francisco; San Diego’s Malashock Dance & Company; Orange County’s Hae Kyung Lee & Dancers; and from Los Angeles proper, Jacques Heim’s Diavolo Dance Theater and Oguri.

Until Peimer started the ball rolling, many of the DanceWest participants had never heard of the Bagnolet festival and the Prix d’Auteur. It was news to Korean American dancer-choreographer Hae Kyung Lee, for example.

“Jordan came to a concert last spring,” said Lee, “and suggested I apply. It wasn’t really a big deal--sending a package to Paris as part of the process, but then I realized, [after] I got selected, it’s a really honorable thing.

Heim, who is originally from Paris was, not surprisingly, already aware of Bagnolet. He compares it to a “shopping mall” for European and international presenters.

“It’s like a Ralph’s or a Lucky,” Heim says with a laugh, “where a lot of presenters come and see what’s new with companies. I’m assuming any company wants to go to Bagnolet, and when you get accepted to DanceWest, it tells you that the people who selected you are interested in your work--that [your] work is something valuable.”

This weekend’s performances will be judged by a panel of four members of the Rencontres Artistic Council: Peimer, Niclas and arts administrators Mirna Zagar from Zagreb, Croatia, and Denis Bergeron from Vancouver, British Columbia. Prize winners will be notified next March, and will go to France in May to claim their awards and participate in the festival.

Given the odds, Heim says, the DanceWest companies have to be philosophical about making the cut.

“If Diavolo is accepted to go to France, I will consider it a miracle,” he says. “We want so badly to go, we are already packing our luggage, but if we don’t go, we won’t be shattered, because we were honored to go through the competition and, at the same time, get to perform with other fantastic companies.”

Peimer agrees, preferring to see DanceWest as a major event for Los Angeles, rather than just a step on the way to Bagnolet.

“What people should care about is all this great dance. If local presenters were smart, they would be there and they would use this as the ultimate audition to see these companies and say, ‘Next year I’ll have to bring Pat Graney,’ because these are some amazingly creative people [participating].”

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DANCEWEST, Cal State L.A.’s Luckman Fine Arts Complex, 5151 State University Drive. Dates: Friday, 8 p.m., with Hae Kyung Lee and Dancers, Pat Graney Company, Oguri, Diavolo Dance Theater. Saturday, 8 p.m., with Malashock Dance & Company, 33 Fainting Spells, Joe Goode Performance Group, Nancy Karp + Dancers. Tickets: $15-$32.50. Phone: (213) 343-6600.