As a movement choreographer my works is entirely unpredictable and I guess for the average person some of the work I end up doing is quite strange! I have spent my career pretending to be an old crone, a vampire, a witch, a suitcase (yes I was indeed an unfolding suitcase for Ian Pons Jewell short film Dreamt in Flesh) so am unfazed by some of the more unusual work creating movement for actors on film.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, I spent most of the time making materials for The Northman which involved me pretending to be a viking berserker transforming into a bear or a wolf. To assist, the film company sent me rehearsal weapon props left over from Game of Thrones, a great collection of swords, axes and shields, so I was very popular with the young village children. I would go to my local village hall and end up stamping and raging and beating shields which was very cathartic at that time! I then had to eventually transpose this material onto huge muscle men who were mostly over six foot tall, one man being over 7 foot tall, as well as Alexander Skarsgaard who himself at that time was built like a viking. Filming this scene in the wet, cold forest in Ireland, with mud, rain and fire, was incredibly memorable.
In 2020 Rotie was head hunted by Robert Eggers to be choreographer for The Northman (directed by Robert Eggers). She created material for Alexander Skarsgard, Anya Taylor Joy and Willem Dafoe as well as larger group casts. She created the iconic berserker movement sequence with a cast of 12 'muscle men', stunt men and Alexander himself.
See this article about her collaboration with Robert Eggers on the movement for The Northman and also further informaiton of the choreography and butoh in The Face.
In 2022 she was movement choreographer for Netflix The Witcher series 3, working with the main cast (Henry Cavill et all) and extras. For an iconic ball room scene she invented a dance called a 'melange; which is a curious mix of the renaissance quadrille meets tango. (Broadcasting from June 2023.
In 2023 she worked for 5 months as movement choreographer for Robert Eggers Nosferatu working mainly with Lily Rose Depp and Bill Skarsgard. For the movement she drew mainly upon her expertise with Butoh and Japanese Noh Theatre to research a walk of ghost, hysteria type movement and possession. The film was shot in Prague, produced by Focus Features and will release in 2024.
Previous work on film includes for celebrated advert Director Ian Pons Jewell with whom she collaborated on several short films and pop videos as choreographer and performer including Dreamt in Flesh, ¼ Inch and Follow for Crystal Fighters.
Marie-Gabrielle has an unusual background into dance, having originally trained as a visual arts painter at Wimbledon School of Art. However, this combination of acute visual literacy with years of experience in movement and choreography is her unique strength when it comes to working with film as she has a natural understanding of the frame, composition and cinematic space. She still continues a visual arts practice alongside her choreography.
Rotie's company works have been extensively supported and funded by Arts Council of England, British Council, The Place Theatre and Trinity Laban amongst many others. Since 2005 she has created eight commissioned works with Trinity Laban, and since 2001 she has staged Nine productions at The Place Theatre including for The Place Prize. Other UK venues that have supported her work include The Royal Opera House, Exeter Phoenix and Nuffield Theatre in Lancaster. International touring includes to festivals in Romania, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Japan and many other countries.
She was Choreographer for The Bacchai Sir Peter Hall, Royal National Theatre. Bacchai 2002 Premiered at Olivier stage, Royal National Theatre and toured to Epidavros in Greece 2002.
Rotie has worked closely as a choreographer and costume design consultant with the London College of Fashion and has staged five productions at venues including The Raphael Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Sadler's Wells and The Royal Academy.
Rotie is an internationally recognized Butoh exponent (she trained in Japan and Europe with Ko Murobushi, Masaki Iwana, Carlotta Ikeda, Kim Itoh, Motofuji-san, Yoshito and Kazuo Ohno, Atsushi Takenouchi, Oguri, Yumiko Yoshioka, Tadashi Endo and many others) and has collaboratedy on duet performances with Ko Murobushi and Atsushi Takenouchi. However, she developed her own aesthetic world and language, building from this training.
Rotie is a regular visiting tutor to Central School of Speech and Drama, Laban and numerous other UK universities, teaching Actors, Dancers, Directors, Visual Artists and Costume Designers.
She has lectured widely in University, and Adult Education on Land Art, Woman Artist and the Body, Performance Art, Japanese Art and Aesthetics, Mythology, Folklore and Earth Mysteries and the Feminine in Fairytales. Many of these research strands have conceptually informed her works over the past twenty years.
Marie-Gabrielle Rotie