the essential
Performer and choreographer, dancer Sophie Carlin dismantled one by one the prejudices that could surround her profession. After having created around fifteen pieces with her company, she is on the verge of completing a new project.
Don’t tell her she’s too small. At 1.55 m tall, Sophie Carlin has everything of a great lady. Born in 1977, she discovered dance during a workshop led by the choreographer and director Alain Marty. She is 11 years old and admits to having “taken the bait” thanks to – or because of, it depends – the former soloist of the Paris opera.
Like others, the young woman’s parents believe that she does not have the physical skills required to become a dancer and the little gymnast from La Fobio continues to Staps, in Toulouse. “But I failed at the Capes. And dancing was stronger than anything, a consuming passion,” says Sophie Carlin, who takes her Lafrançaise cliques and slaps to the Kim Kan school in Paris.
1999. The auditions followed by the first tours. The Myriam Dooge company then that of Pierre Doussaint who propelled it to Berlin. Until the day she spots a casting call organized by the team of Luc Plamandon, known for having produced the musicals Starmania and Notre-Dame-de-Paris. La Tarn-et-Garonnaise is selected among the six dancers of Cindy, in which Lââm plays Cinderella. “Unexpected,” she whispers twenty-two years later. But the desire to teach reappears and the performer joins the national dance center (CND) in Lyon.
I always wanted to break the codes. Prejudices fed me up and thanks to the ‘Open Arms’ festival, I was able to show the public all the stages of artistic creation. I wanted to democratize dance, that’s my identity.
Parenthesis also quickly closed when she encountered hip-hop or more precisely, Bouba Landrille Tchouda (Malka company) then Khader Attou (Accrorap company). “Landrille stuck with my dancing and the aesthetics that I could develop. My energetic and musical gestures fit well with the beginnings of hip-hop on stage because before, we mainly talked about modern jazz,” comments Sophie Carlin, who became bulimic.
She launched the “Open Arms” festival in the center of Lafrançaise in 2002; founded his first company in 2003; created “Maman”, her first piece in 2006 when she had just given birth to her first child. “I always wanted to break the codes. Prejudices fed me and thanks to the ‘Open Arms’ festival, I was able to show the public all the stages of artistic creation. I wanted to democratize dance, that’s that’s my identity.”
In 2016, the piece “Man” and its rock approach to the impact of humans on the environment attracted the favor of the Avignon festival. Then, Sophie Carlin adjusts the focus on the department with “Esquisses” and “Chizzare”, a work carried out around Ingres. “I have always liked to draw inspiration from the territories and Tarn-et-Garonne in particular,” confides the woman who has embarked on a large-scale collaborative project: “Songe”.
See you in Mars in dance
In this dreamlike universe, amateur and professional dancers play the same part. The costumes, both baroque and futuristic with their crinoline headdresses and lights on their backs, are in turn created by high school students from Bourdelle, middle school students from Antonin-Perbosc (Lafrançaise) and visual artist Myriam Dogbé (Lauzerte). After two first performances supported by Tarn-et-Garonne Arts & Culture and the Embarcadères programming, Sophie Carlin and her troupe now have their heads turned towards the 2025 edition of the Mars en danse festival, in Montauban.
On March 22, fourteen dancers, a lyric singer and an actress will take over the heart of the town of Montauban with their funny costumes for a dance journey that promises to be spooky. “I love that it’s multidisciplinary,” smiles the choreographer who can count on the support of the Department and the town halls of Lafrançaise and Montauban.
In-depth work carried out with schools
Sophie Carlin regularly intervenes in educational establishments where she carries out in-depth projects which can be combined with other teaching. It is thanks to this collective emulation that in 2023, the choreographer and middle school students from Labastide-Saint-Pierre won the cultural artistic education prize (EAC) for the “Tree Parade”. This video creation born during his stay in Guyana made it possible to work on dance, of course, but also on global warming.
Teachers of French, plastic arts, SVT, history and music joined in the process which was rewarded by the academy. It should be noted that on November 18, the choreographer will perform her solo “Alice in the Land of Dance” in front of the 6th graders at Manuel-Azaña college. This dance conference traces the history of the discipline through the prism of a little girl who was said to be too small to become a dancer.
