REVIEW - PERFORMING ARTS
Florence Annequin [Floanne Ankah] and Camille de Galbert presented "echO" in New York
You were dancing? Well, film it now

Dancing, video, singing, theatre, poetry. There was all of that in echO, the performance Florence Annequin [Floanne Ankah] and Camille de Galbert presented in New York last April. The proof that "multimedia", this term a bit technical, a bit abstract, that left more than one sceptical a few years back, is not a vain word. Today, mixing the forms has become a reality, and not only in technical fields. In arts too, some boundaries are being crossed. It is at least what Floanne Ankah, 23, and Camille de Galbert, 24, who embody various talents, believe.

The two young women have studied dance since they were kids, first in France and then in United States, but Floanne sees herself as an actress, whereas Camille would rather be a videographer, at least for now. Their performance, even though produced with very small means, was of great quality. To do things seriously, to act as professionals: Camille and Floanne have the strong desire to succeed, and they understood the rules of the game.
For echO, everything went fast. Towards the end of November, “the Field”, a New York based umbrella organization offered Floanne Ankah a performing residency in Hell’s Kitchen for a few evenings in April. From there, all she had to do was create a performance to fill the space she was given. Floanne motivated her friend Camille, whom she met two years earlier at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio, to help her conceive the project. Together, they agreed on a show “with several scenic layers”. “Modern dance can sometimes be boring, explains Floanne. We therefore wanted to have several things happening on stage at the same time. We also wanted to be able to offer artists a place to express themselves and do what they have always dreamed of doing on stage. Not to impose, but to propose: this was my idea at the outset”.
It is on those terms that Camille and Floanne selected three other dancers: a Japanese, a German and an American. The little troop also encompassed a musician, a technician and a painter who was also in charge of PR. Floanne Ankah coordinated the dancers while Camille de Galbert was in charge of the art videos. In total, they presented five performances and attracted close to a hundred spectators. Despite a few difficulties – some lost equipment, a group sometimes difficult to bring under control and accounts in the red – they do not regret the experience: “We learned a lot from echO and the situation is different today, declares Camille. Several choreographers and dancers came to see us and expressed interest in working with us in the future.”
The two friends do not intend to stop on the way. echO is a work in progress. They would like to develop the material and present the performance in dance festivals. They are also establishing their own multimedia production company, FC production, in order to finance their projects. “My dream, specified Floanne, would be to make a living doing art”.
No doubt that with her drive, this farm girl, who always evidenced an unusual maturity, will be able to achieve her goal. As a kid, she was elected in the Châbons town counsil for children, in her parents town, between Lyon and Grenoble. “I served for two terms. I had to be elected.” At 13, she left the family farm to enroll in a dance-studies program in a high school in Grenoble. “It was a sacrifice to leave, but I knew I was making the right choice.” She lived in a dorm, then in a small studio and obtained her scientific baccalaureate with honors. At 17, she decided to come to New York and join the certificate program at Alvin Ailey. “I didn’t like the school, so I registered at Hunter College where I studied theatre, contemporary dance and opera.
To make a living – her parents cannot finance her studies – she gathered small jobs and  obtains small scholarships. Today, she assists several artists, works for the newspaper “Journal Français”, for which she is the voice of the DVD edition. She is also about to perform in two plays at the Inwood Shakespeare Festival this summer.

Irony: Camille and Floanne are both from Grenoble, but it was only in New York that they met. Like Floanne, Camille grew up as a dancer, a vocation that she discovered early on. At the same time with training at the national conservatory in the region, she studied in a sport-studies program. After obtaining her high-school diploma, she left to take dance workshops at la Cartoucherie de Vincennes, in the Paris suburb, before flying to New York at 19, where she registered at Cunningham. “This dance school trains hard core technicians, explains this beautiful brunette coming from a family of artists. All the steps are codified. I always dreamed of coming to study the method.” She participates in several events, including the DUMBO Festival in Brooklyn – when an injury forced her to move away from dancing. She then discovered a new passion for video, and decided to register at the New York Film Academy. For echO, she shot a black and white film on the Brooklyn Bridge, featuring two contemporary dancers moving on a Schubert melody. It was graceful and fashionable at the same time. Proof that we can melt everything.

Claire Derville
France-Amérique, June 2006