Mehdi Ackermann was born in 1988 in Montreuil-sous-bois. After studies in philosophy and aesthetics at Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne he oriented towards the audiovisuel and the cinema. Along with his experiences of editing in the documentary field, he has also edited artists' films. He made his first short film, Plein Emploi in 2017, now in post-production, and was laureat that year of the residency l'Atelier organised by the Cinema 93 and Coté Court. He is also writing a short film project entitled Stigmate and a medium length film called Le temps du rêve.
Daniele Balit is an art historian, theorist and exhibition curator. Doctorate at the University Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne, he teaches history of art at the Institut Supérieur des Beaux-Arts at Besançon and is a visiting lecturer at the University Paris 8, where he is associate lecturer of the laboratory TEAMeD – Theory, Experimentation, Arts, Medias and Design. His research is on audio-visual convergencies in the «post-Cage» period, as well as contextual practices and the in-situ. In 2014, he obtained a grant from the CNAP (support for theory and art crticism) for research on the artist Max Neuhaus of who he is a specialist. Among the articles published are «From Ear to Site – On Discreet Sound» (Leonardo Music Journal, n°23, 2013 – MIT Press) and «For an ecological music – Max Neuhaus» (Critique d'Art n°44, Spring/Summer 2015). He is also co-editor of Les pianos ne poussent pas sur les arbres – Writings and Interviews by Max Neuhaus, an anthology being published at Les presses du réel, coll. Ochetecho. He is a founding member of the curatorial programme 1:1 projects in Rome, of the collective OuUnPoet, and initiator of Birdcage, a temporary and itinerant gallery involving sound pratice. His recent curatorial projects include : Blow-up (Paris : Jeu de Paume, 2012), No Music was Playing (Montreuil : Instants Chavirés – Brasserie Bouchoule, 2014), Red Swan Hotel (Rome : MACRO, 2015), Wetlands Hero (Chatou : Cneai, 2015), Max Feed (Besançon : Frac Franche-Comté, 2016) and Max Feed (Besançon : Institut Supérieur de Beaux Arts : 2016), a two parts exhibition, of which he is preparing the catalogue.
Annalisa Bertoni is teaching at the fine art school of Nîmes and is associated member of CEPA (Culture, esthétique et philosophie de l’art) at the University Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne. She is the author of a thesis about Marguerite Duras (Au seuil du texte : genèse du Ravissement de Lol V. Stein, to be published at Peter Lang) and of a numerous articles about Duras. Her researches are also concerning contemporary writings (François Bon, Martine Sonnet, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Marcelline Delbecq, Suzanne Doppelt), with a specific attention for the creative process and the relation between arts and literature.
Romain Bigé teaches philosophy and is a dancer. He trained in improvisation in the United States, then in Europe with Lisa Nelson, Nancy Stark Smith, Jeorg Hasmann, Mathieu Gaudeau and many others. He was co-founder in 2014 of L'oeil et la main, a collective dedicated to the creation of spaces and practical time around Contact Improvisation. Dramaturgist, he has accompanied many theatrical creations by the Tcheque Director Linda Duskova and has collaborated with different choreographers and dancers (Myriam Lefkowitz, Chris Aiken, Boris Charmatz, Joao Fiadeiro). Professor of Philosophy and graduate of the Ecole Normale supérieure in 2013, a Fulbright scholar in 2016, he has just upheld a thesis in philosophy and dance studies, The Sharing of Movement. A philosophy of the gestural with Contact Improvisation, directed by Renaud Barbaras in the context of the PhD Science Art Creation Research of PSL*/ENS. As researcher, he collaborates with the Labo danse directed by Asaf Bachrach (CNRS) dedicated to research in cognitive sciences on concerted improvisation. As teacher he gives art philosophy lessons and lessons in the philosophy of the gesture in the pluridisciplinary Degree of PSL* at Paris (ENS-Mines) ; with the dancer and instructor Matthieu Gaudeau, he has created Espaces tactile, a cycle of workshops designed to build bridges between dance and philosophy.
Adrien Genoudet is a writer, film director and researcher in visual history. After studies in history and anthropology, he is preparing a thesis on cinema and mixes his artistic practice with his research. He is a part-time fellow in teaching and research (Ater) at the Collège de France, attached to the Chair of Pr. Patrick Boucheron since September 2016. He teaches cinema, history and visual arts at Scienes Po Paris since 2012 and at the Ecole Européenne Supérieure de l'Image (EESI). He also taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales between 2013 and 2014. Since 2013 he is associate researcher at the Institut d'Histoire du temps Présent (IHTP) at the CNRS and associate researcher at the Musée Albert Kahn. He published a first essay, Drawing history. For a visual history, with a preface by Pascal Ory (2015) and is author of a first novel, L'Etreinte, published at the Editions Inculte (2017). He made two feature films and three short films presented in the context of festivals and art centres. In 2017, he was laureat of the prize of the Fondation Hugot of the Collège de France.
Mathieu Bouvier is a visual artist, director and independent researcher. He graduated from Saint-Etienne and Lyon Fine Arts Schools and also the school of Fresnoy, the Tourcoing SNAC. He makes video short films in which the image is a product of speech, called, written or crossed out. He regularly attends the domain of contemporary dance, as a videographer, scenographer and playwright. Doctoral student in art at the University Paris 8, his thesis project focuses on a figural approach of the danced gesture.
http://www.pourunatlasdesfigures.net/
https://www.mathieubouvier.net/
Julie Perrin is a university lecturer at the Dance Departement at the University Paris 8 Saint-Denis and member of the Laboratory Discourses and Dance Practices (MUSIDANSE-EA 1572). She is at present junior member at the Institut Universitaire de France (2016-2021) and is developing research entitled Choreography and Landscape. From 2016-2019, with Myriam Gourfink and Yvane Chapuis, she is conducting a research project supported by La Manufacture – Haute Ecole spécialisée de Suisse Occidentale in Lausanne, called: Choreographic composition today. What tools for what artistic position? Her research involves knowledge relevant to contemporary dance from 1950 in the United States and in France, and in particular on spatiality in dance and situated choreography. It is concerned with relational aesthetics and is deployed through the analysis of works while questioning perceptive processes, the notion of the work of art, compositional modes, or the work of a dancer in a creative or transmitive situation. This survey on contemporary creation ( on the works as well as discourse and artists' choreographic writings) has generated many publications, amongst which are : Projet de la matière – Odile Duboc : Memory of a choreographic work (CND/les Presses du Réel, 2007) ; Stories and readings : Trisha Brown/Emmanuelle Huynh (coedition. E. Huynh and D. Luccioni, Les Presses du Réel, 2012) ; Odile Duboc, Les mots de la matière. Writings by the choreographer (coedition F. Michel, Les Solitaires Intempestifs, 2012) ; Composition in dance today. Enquiry into 10 choreographers (coedition Y. Chapuis, M. Gourfink, La Manufacture, to be published in 2019). The analysis in spatiality in dance – architectural, choreographic and corporal spatialities – has developped along two complementary axes : the first concerns scenic spatiality and questions theatrical space as a vision system through ways of focusing as proposed by choreography This led to a book entitled Figures of focus. Five essays on dance spatiality (Les presses du réel, 2012). In parallel, this research on spatiality is deployed on a second axis through the analysis of choreographic projects accompanied outside theatres. This led to the publication of numerous articles on dancing away from the stage or situated choreography, in other words a choreography conceived with, or for, a particular place. This research developed with particular attention on and around historical american figures (Merce Cunningham, Anna Halprin, Simone Forti...) as well as contemporary artists (l'Agence Touriste, Gustave Ciriaco, Catherine Contour, Myriam Lefkowitz, Laurent Pichaud...). It is a question of understanding how these choreographers live as dancers, provoking poetic, social, sensitive situations which invite a redefinition of the uses of the urban, representations of nature, as much as the place of art today.
Complete Bibliography and articles accessible on line
http://www.danse.univ-paris8.fr