Flying Circus Project 2009/2010 Platform 1
Biographies
Boris Charmatz (FR) is the director of the Musée de la danse / Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne since January 1st, 2009, Boris Charmatz presented from Aatt enen tionon (1996) to La danseuse malade (2008) a series of highly memorable pieces. While maintaining an extensive touring schedule, he also participates in improvisational events on a regular basis (with Saul Williams, Archie Shepp, Médéric Collignon) and continues to work as a performer with Odile Duboc, Pierre Alféri and Meg Stuart, to name a few. From 2002 to 2004, while an artist-in-residence at the Centre national de la danse, he developed Bocal, a nomadic and ephemeral school that brought together students from different backgrounds. In 2007 and 2008, he was a visiting professor at Berlin’s Akademie der Künste where he contributed to the creation of a new dance curriculum. Charmatz is also the co-author of Entretenir / à propos d’une danse contemporaine written with Isabelle Launay and published jointly by the CND Centre national de la danse, Paris and Les Presses du réel. His new book Je suis une école was published in April 2009 by Les prairies ordinaires.
François Chaignaud (FR) was educated in classical and contemporary dance at the Conservatoire National de Région de Rennes and got a diploma from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris in 2003. He met Odile Duboc, Hervé Robbe, Mark Tompkins in the frame of the Junior Ballet. After having particiated in the project Bocal, initiated by Boris Charmatz, he works as a dancer with Emmanuelle Huynh, Gilles Jobin, Aydin Teker, Mille Plateaux Associés, Tiago Guedes, Alice Chauchat, Alain Buffard and Boris Charmatz. In 2004 he is offered the prix d’interprétation de l’ADAMI. Since 2004 he has been presenting performances and concerts: Pompè – procession urbaine (2004), He’s one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick (2005), La Culture des Individu.e.s (2006), The Clodd and the pebble (2008), Aussi bien que ton coeur ouvre moi les genoux (2009). Since 2005 he has been collaborating with Cecilia Bengolea. With their company VLOVAJOV PRU they created Paquerette (Antipodes, Brest, 2008) and Sylphides (2009). Since September 2007 he has been preparing his master on the history of feminism in France in 1900 (published in 2009) at Université Paris - X Nanterre.
Heman Chong (SG) is an artist and a curator. He received his M.A in Communication Art & Design from The Royal College of Art, London in 2002. His art practice involves an investigation into the philosophies, reasons and methods of individuals and communities imagining the future. Charged with a conceptual drive, this research is then adapted into objects, images, installations, situations or texts. He has developed solo exhibitions at Hermes Third Floor (Singapore), Vitamin Creative Space (Guangzhou), Art In General (New York), Project Arts Centre (Dublin), Ellen de Bruijne Projects (Amsterdam), Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin). His work has also been shown extensively in group exhibitions including Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Arnolfini, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Hamburger Bahnhof, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Daejeon Museum of Art. He has participated in 2008 Singapore Biennale, 2006 SCAPE Christchurch Biennale, 2004 Busan Biennale, 2000 10th India Triennale, Venice Biennale 2003. He has collectively written a science fiction novel entitled PHILIP with 7 other collaborators. Heman Chong works with Vitamin Creative Space (Beijing/Guangzhou).
Padmini Chettur (IND) was introduced to traditional Indian Bharathanatyam dance at a very early age. It has given her a specific style of dancing and a heightened awareness of her body. She came into contact with contemporary movement when she joined the company of choreographer and dancer Chandralekha in Chennai (Madras) in 1991, staying for 8 years. This has given her a very physical style of choreographic movement which is full of emotion. Padmini Chettur is now using her two different experiences of dance, synthesising them to produce her choreographies. She began presenting her own works in 1999, taking them on tour in India and Europe: solos Wings and Masks and Brown, duos like Unsung, and group pieces Fragility, Paperdoll and Pushed which was co-produced by Seoul Performing Arts Festival. Her creation enables her to continue her singular association of the tradition of Indian dance and of contemporary movement free from formal symbolic ideas.
Torrance Goh (SG) graduated with an architectural degree from the National University of Singapore. His curiosity and adventurous spirit led him to work with Alsop Architects in their London and Singapore offices. The love of the local and the arts prompted him to start up the non-profit design and art society, FARM, in 2006. Torrance believes that his designs should be delightful and have an element of surprise. When he is not doing design, Torrance enjoys cooking and throwing huge insane house parties.
Yves-Noël Genod (FR) studied acting at the Ecole d'Antoine Vitez and has been working a lot in the field of dance. He works with Claude Régy, François Tanguy (Théâtre du Radeau), Julie Brochen, Valérie Dréville and since 10 years with Loïc Touzé. He has followed many workshops in contact-improvisation, and improvisation in the broadest sense as well as contemporary techniques (Ménagerie de Verre), and since 6 years classical dance with Wayne Byars. Since 2003 and starting with En attendant Genod until Vénus & Adonis, Yves-Noël Genod creates his own work: 30 pieces (and several performances). Despite the fact that his pieces are a lot involving techniques of theatre, they have been all presented in the context of contemporary dance and most recently by the Théâtre National de Chaillot for 21 performances.
Mette Ingvartsen (DK) is a Danish choreographer and dancer. From 1999 she studied in Amsterdam and Brussels where she in summer 2004 graduated from the performing arts school P.A.R.T.S. Since summer 2002 she has made several performance works among others Manual Focus, 50/50, to come and Why We Love Action. Her practice includes writing, making, performing and documenting work. Her most recent performance works are IT’S IN THE AIR (2008) a collaboration with Jefta van Dinther and the YouTube project Where is my privacy (2008 / 9). She is currently working on GIANT CITY that will premiere in October 2009 in Graz. Besides her performance work she is engaged in research and in questioning modes of production within the performing arts. In 2008 she participated in 6Months1Location confronting questions around education, structures of production and research within the performing arts. Since 2005 she has been working on everybodys, an ongoing collaborative project based on open source strategies that aims at producing tools and games that can be used by everybody in order to develop work. She is part of the collective COCO’s who recently presented Breeding, Brains and Beauty. And has collaborated with Jan Ritsema and Bojana Cveji_ on several theater performances.
Donna Miranda (PH) is a dance artist living and working in the Philippines. She studied Anthropology at the University of the Philippines and received specialized training in contemporary dance in Manila and Europe, participating in several exchange programs, intercultural dialogue and multimedia collaborative projects in parts of Asia. In 2000, she co-founded Green Papaya Art Projects with Norberto Roldan, facilitating experimental platforms for contemporary dance practice in Manila. In 2007 she received the Jury Prize Award at the Yokohama Dance Collection-R Solo x Duo Competition for her solo Beneath Polka-dotted Skies and nominated for the Rolex Mentor Protégé Arts Initiative the same year. At the moment she sits as artistic director of The Lovegangsters an open collective of artists, autodidacts, hangers-on and talkers working in contemporary dance, sound, new media and performance
Joavien Ng (SG) began her choreographing and performing career in 1997, after graduating from La Salle School of Performing Arts in Singapore. In 2009, Joavien’s new work, Body Swap, was presented at Kampnagel and Esplanade Theatre. In this new work, Joavien collaborated with Germany-based American Choreographer, Dani Brown. In 2008, LAB and Body Inquire, were commissioned by Esplanade - theatre on the Bay and the Singapore Arts Festival 2008 respectively. She also attended the Dance Expert Workshop in Sydney, organised by the Goethe Institute in October. In 2007, she was invited by the Japanese Centre of International Theatre Institute (Tokyo) to participate in the Asia Contemporary Dance Conference. In 2006, her work, Dream, was commissioned by the Contemporary Dance of Fort Worth, Tx, USA. Joavien Ng was also invited by Singapore Esplanade Theatre to participate in Little Asia Dance Exchange Network 2005. She premieried Victoria, and performed in 5 Asian cities (Taipei, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul and Singapore). In 2003, Joavien Ng founded Crow Jane, a platform to promote and facilitate collaborative contemporary works.
Ong Keng Sen (SG), artistic director of TheatreWorks, is a well-known performance director and has actively contributed to the evolution of an Asian identity; as well as the subsequent transglobalisation of the Asian aesthetic in contemporary arts. Many of his works have been presented and acclaimed throughout the world. The Flying Circus Project, created from 1996, is Keng Sen’s most important work. This experimental project brings together traditional and contemporary Asian artists from the fields of visual arts, video, documentary, performing arts, as well as philosophers, literary specialists, and artists of new media and “new rituals”. He has continued to develop this work with Dasarts, Amsterdam; the Urban Fetishes programme at TanzQuartier Wien; Goteborg Dance and Theatre Festival; Kiasma Helsinki; as well as with the Summer Institute at The Kitchen, in New York City. Keng Sen is the founder and director of In-Transit, an annual interdisciplinary arts festival in Berlin (2002 & 2003). He also curated the Insomnia season for the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (2005), and the Politics of Fun exhibition at the House of World Cultures, Berlin (2005). In 1999, he founded Arts Network Asia (www.artsnetworkasia.org), which continues till today.