Dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz presented from Aatt enen tionon (1996) to manger (2014) 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 Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Tino Sehgal.
Associate artist of the 2011 Festival d'Avignon, Charmatz presented enfant, a piece for 26 children and 9 dancers in the Cour d’Honneur of the Pope’s Palace. In 2013, he was invited to MoMA, New York where he conceived Musée de la danse: Three Collective Gestures, a three week dance program in the Marron Atrium and all over the museum. In 2015, Boris Charmatz was invited to Tate Modern, London, for If Tate Modern was Musée de la danse? an intensive two day performance program throughout the galleries and the Turbine Hall. The same year he presented 20 Dancers for the XX Century at the Palais Garnier, Opéra national de Paris.
Since 2009, he has been the director of the Rennes and Brittany National Choreographic Centre (France), and has transformed it into a Museum of Dance (Musée de la danse) of a new kind. The museum has initiated, among others, the projects: préfiguration, expo zéro, rebutoh, brouillon (rough draft), 20 Dancers for the XX Century, Fous de danse (Mad about dance) and Petit Musée de la danse. Boris Charmatz cosigned the books undertraining / On A Contemporary Dance with Isabelle Launay, Emails 2009-2010 with Jérôme Bel, and signed “Je suis une école”, related to the project Bocal, a nomadic and ephemeral school.
He is currently working on danse de nuit, a performance for 6 dancers that will première on September 2, 2016 at La Bâtie-Festival de Genève (Switzerland).
More information is available at: www.museedeladanse.org and www.borischarmatz.org
(Above) JJ Tiziou Photography
(Below) Boris Charmatz. Photo Credit: Musée de la danse, © Caroline Ablain