Susan Buirge Update — June 2010
For those of you from the Henry Street Playhouse era, here is an update on Susan Buirge (HSP, NDT 63–67). My contact with Susan has been sporadic. In 1999, for my 80th birthday, she sent me copies of two of her books, which I read with great interest. She also sent me an interview she conducted with Hanya Holm, which we published here online. I later had a note from Carolyn Carlson, who said (and I paraphrase) that Susan has a wonderful studio near Paris and is a very good teacher.
|
|
Then in December 2009, I visited her in Japan.
Susan stopped performing in 1990. She has lived in France since 1970 and on and off in Japan, of course incorporatiing these experiences in her work. To study the use of space in dance, she traveled in Ethiopia, Greece, Syria, Japan, Taiwan, and India. From 1992 to 1998 her work with a gagaku master and contemporary dancers in Kyoto led to the unique association of contemporary dance and ancient Japanese music. Four pieces dedicated to the cycle of the seasons were presented at the Avignon Festival and on major tours in France. She incorporated video into a live dance performance in 1968 while she was still in New York City (the performance, which I saw, was memorable because she incorporated the motion on the screen into the dance). She also explored unusual perfomance spaces, such as an airport and a ruined 18th century chateau.
Susan has choreographed some 95 works. Her company performed in Poland, Germany, England, Mexico, and Sweden, as well as in all the major theaters and festivals in France. Her company performed in New York City only once that I can recall and that was in the early eighties. From 1995 to 2007, Susan and her company were in residence at the Fondation Royaumont in Asnieres-sur-Oise, France, where she directed Le Centre de Recherche et de Composition Chorégraphiques (the Centre for Choreographic Research and Composition).
Today she lives in the Japanese village of Kamate on the Sea of Japan coast, where she directs Plateforme, a research project in the ancient dance rituals of Asia. Presently she is writing her memoires to be published in France in November 2011.
— Ruth E. Grauert
