Starting this world over again, at a time when our relationship with living things has been profoundly destabilized, at a time of climate crisis and when biodiversity is being lost, is the challenge that philosopher Baptiste Morizot has set himself in his book L’inexploré (Wildproject editions, 2023).
Starting this world over again brings together performances, workshops for children and adults, conferences, laboratories and walks, all strategies devised by artists, thinkers and researchers to represent this crisis and make it perceptible, and to open up an imagination leading to a different relationship with non-humans.
Starting this world over again is an event devised by choreographer Jérôme Bel, associate artist at the CN D in 2023-2024, his collaborator Rebecca Lasselin, and the CN D team, in dialogue with the MC93 as part of the Quartier général event "Is sustainable theatre possible?".
For three weeks, Starting this world over again brings together a community of individuals working on this question, who will share with the public the stages of their research and their results.
Jérôme Bel will take part in the round table "Ecopoetics: art as an invention to a different relationship with the living world?" with the composer Samir Amarouch and visual artist Marion Laval-Jeantet, as part of the "Does collapse nourish creation?" Forum, on 18 November 2023 from 11.45am to 1pm.
As the title suggests, the aim is to use dance videos gleaned from the internet to update the ideas that have permeated dance since the beginning of the 20th century. This session will consist of participants viewing and discussing these ideas.
Idées chorégraphiques will take place on 16 November at the Centre national de la danse (Pantin).
At the invitation of Stéphane Breton (EHESS) and Arnaud Hée (La cinémathèque du documentaire at the Bpi), for Ciné-conférence, Jérôme Bel has chosen Scénario du film Passion by Jean-Luc Godard (1983), for a screening on 25 October at 2pm at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
Choreographer Jérôme Bel and art historian Estelle Zhong Mengual talk to Sébastien Allard, director of the Paintings Department at the Musée du Louvre, about the genesis and creative process of Danses non humaines, presented at the Louvre from 5 to 14 October 2023.
Further information
Kayije Kagame's new creation, Intérieur nuit / Intérieur vie, brings together a film and a play in multiple dialogues. A dialogue between theatre and cinema, a dialogue between the images of a film and their commentary on stage, between the incarnate presence of an actress and presences engraved on film, between her voice and others whose words she carries, who express their point of view on the projected images. Through the play of lines and duplications, descriptions and interpretations, a space between theatre and cinema opens up where those who live on the fringes of visibility, on the margins of exhibitions and representations, between the night that ends and the early morning, appear.
Jérôme Bel participated in the conception of Intérieur vie, the theater piece.
The first performances are from 7 to 12 March at Arsenic (Geneva), and from 23 march to 4 april 2323 at Théâtre de Gennevilliers.
While one might think that they are austere or overly didactic, the creations that are dealing with a possible collapse are far more inventive. According to Julie Sermon, they even radically question the dominant scenic schemes. Interested in the advent of new actors, new dramaturgies, performance devices and production methods, the professor of theatre history has been devoting her research to the links between ecology and the performing arts since 2017. During a meeting, the sharing of questions raised by Morts ou vifs, pour une écologie des arts vivants opens the possibility of thinking about the ecosystemic crisis as an opportunity to question our narratives, our relationships and our practices, as well as to rearm our imaginary and our sensibilities.
March 3 at 2:30 pm in the auditorium of the Ateliers des Capucins as part of Dansfabrik (Brest)
Coordinated by Aïnhoa Jean-Calmettes for Mouvement
With Julie Sermon, professor of history and aesthetics of contemporary theatre at the University of Lyon 2, Betty Tchomanga, associate artist at Le Quartz, Nina Santes, choreographer, Jérôme Bel, choreographer
More information
During this long residency, the French choreographer will engage with the activities and missions of the CN D, and it will allow the development of specific projects combining creation, diffusion, professional training, educational and informative actions towards the general public, as well as a long-term reflection and engagement with the choreographic network. These two years will be structured along public meetings and conversations with Bel and other artists who share his outlook on dance and performance.
Moonwalk and Shirtology will be presented in his next exhibition, Hippydrome, from April 30 to September 4, 2022 at Frac Normandie - Caen.
Reconciling genres and generations, Hippydrome brings together in a collective exhibition the new acquisitions made by FRAC Normandie, including several donations, as well as some older works from the collection, and others loaned for the occasion.
At the invitation of the philosopher Florian Gaité, Jérôme Bel will intervene in the seminar he co-leads with Aline Caillet at the Sorbonne School of Arts (Paris 1), "The art world seen through the prism of indistinction: art, institution, industry". The meeting will take place on April 14, 2022 from 6 to 9 pm, at the Centre National de la Danse CN D in Pantin and will be in French.
At the invitation of Maïté Rivière, director of Le Quartz in Brest, the choreographers Betty Tchomanga and Jérôme Bel are co-programming the DansFabrik festival. This edition, which deals with environmental issues in the most transversal way possible, will take place from February 22 to 28, 2022.
"As co-programmer of this year's edition of the festival, I based myself on the theses of the academic Julie Sermon in her book Morts ou vifs, pour une écologie des arts vivants, which distinguishes several ways of acting in the theater.
The first is pragmatic, in other words, producing shows in an ecological way. My play Isadora Duncan was created after I decided that, for ecological reasons, neither I nor my company would fly anymore. It was built by putting all the elements of a show through an ecological lens, in order to reduce its carbon footprint as much as possible. The Local Festival International attempts to combine international collaboration with the elimination of air travel. It will bring together foreign choreographers (Taiwan and Uruguay) and choreographers and dancers working in Brittany.
The second way to act is thematic, that is to say that the works deal with global warming. Thus, Nature, the latest film by Armenian director Artavazd Pelechian, and Extinction Room (Hopeless.), the performance by Romanian choreographer Sergiu Matis living in Berlin observe the precarious cohabitation of human communities with their environment."
Jérôme Bel, December 2021
More
The LaM, modern art museum of Villeneuve d'Ascq in the Lille metropolis, proposes sessions of reflection, meetings and exchanges on the links between art and ecology on December 19, 2021,
January 13, February 3 and March 10, 2022.
Through the eyes of curators, researchers, art historians, and entrepreneurs, we will examine the way in which the cultural sector, and in particular the visual arts sector, addresses the issue of ecological transition and questions our way of inhabiting the world.
Jérôme Bel will speak on February 3, 2022 in videoconference, on the issue of mobility.
More
The goal of this workshop is to transmit several dances from Isadora Duncan's repertoire. These dances will be taught by dancers and choreographers Elisabeth Schwartz, Catherine Gallant and Jérôme Bel. Catherine Gallant will speak from New York via videoconference. The workshop is intended for experienced dancers who will be selected by application. It takes place from November 22 to 26, 2021 from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm at the CN D Centre National de la Danse in Pantin.
More
Isadora Duncan is considered a pioneer of modern dance. The visionary choreographer with her freedom of expression and her preference for spontaneity and naturalness formed the basis for this art form. As part of Tanzwerstatt Europa in Munchen and ImPulsTanz in Wien, Isadora Duncan by French choreographer Jérôme Bel, who has been continuing his series of portraits of well-known dancers with this work, will be performed.
Together with the dancer and specialist Duncan’s repertory Elisabeth Schwarz, Jérôme Bel gives a masterclass in Munchen on 26 July 2021 and a workshop in Wien on 31 July and 1st August 2021. What is at stake is the transmission of several dances taken from the repertory of Isadora Duncan.
Due to the global pandemic last year, the entry and departure restrictions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak forced the Taipei Arts Festival to cancel half of its programs in 2020 and came up with “emergency programs” within a short period. As a result, Jérôme Bel adopts a fresh method of choreographic practice for this work, and turns some of his works into solo dance scores to be freely interpreted and performed by Wu-Kang Chen.
The 2020 prestigious Taishin Performing Arts Award is given to the piece Dances for Wu-Kang Chen.
More
At the invitation of curator Sabine Breitwieser, Jérôme Bel proposes a selection of films for a post-war experimental and dance film program of Spark art fair Vienna, which takes place from June 24 to 27, 2021.
Jérôme Bel will speak, from Paris by videoconference, in the seminar entitled "Disabled Theater and body aesthetics", alongside Xiao Jing, Liao Shuyi (both choreographers and assistants for the re-mounting of Gala in Xiamen) and Shi Ke (Researcher specialising in live performance), on 15 May 2021, at the invitation of the 3rd Luminous Festival and the Festival Croisements. Prior to the meeting, the films of the performance Disabled Theater and of the local restaging of Gala in Xiamen will be shown.
Réveil'culture is a collective created by more than 200 students of the higher education of Culture. Together, they have set themselves the mission of mobilizing the public, professionals and students of culture to accelerate the ecological transition of the sector in which they dream of working.
The Fabrique Des Possibles that they organize online on 15 february 2021 is a public talk to discuss the challenges of this ecological transition and propose concrete actions for the culture of tomorrow. The guests are Manon Viau - ARVIVA, live performance and environmental issues; Matthieu Cattoni, Co-founder of the Festival Les Pluies de Juillet and the Salon Normandurable; Jean-François Camilleri, President of Echo Studio and former CEO of The Walt Disney Company France; Charles Gachet-Dieuzeide, Co-founder and Managing Director of SECOYA Eco Tournage; Loïc Fel - COAL Association and Jérôme Bel, Choreographer.
More infos on the public talk (in French only)
From climate to screens, planetary disorders are changing our visual culture. Hors Pistes festival at the Centre Pompidou (Paris) invites filmmakers, artists and researchers to alert the eyes and glimpse other futures, for its 2021 edition. Jérôme Bel looks back on his ecological commitment and the way he created the piece Xiao Ke, with the eponymous Shanghai choreographer and dancer, without any aerial flights.
To watch (in French only)
On the occasion of its 15th Anniversary, Performa (New York) presents The Performa Telethon featuring live performances, art editions, digital shorts and testimonials from over 50 artists, on November 18th, 2020 from 5pm - 10pm EST. The Performa Telethon is dedicated to the legacy of Nam June Paik, the pioneer of video art who coined the term ‘electronic superhighway’ to predict the future of communication in the internet age. The Telethon retains the Live-For-TV spirit of Paik’s Good Morning Mr. Orwell by mediating live performers in NYC with artists around the globe in a collaborative broadcast event. As in Paik’s broadcast, the Telethon also reflects the pressing issues of the world around us, responding to the impact of the pandemic, and the current groundswell of activism and action against injustice.
Jérôme Bel has been invited to participate by a Live Studio Performance.
The Carte Blanche to Jérôme Bel is the result of an international collaboration between the West Bund Museum X Centre Pompidou in Shanghai and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. These two institutions proposed to Jérôme Bel to invest the West Bund Museum from November 13 to November 28, 2020.
With the restaging of two shows performed by twenty Chinese dancers specially recruited in Shanghai, Gala and Company Company, a new Franco-Chinese creation initiated between Paris and Shanghai, Xiao Ke, which will be complemented by a screening of dance films and a conference bringing together dance professionals, this carte blanche makes Jérôme Bel one of the major guests of the West Bund Museum's Autumn. Without undertaking any international travel, but by experimenting with new production and dissemination practices, this approach combines the concern to preserve our environment with that of creation and transmission.
In 1993, Hans Ulrich Obrist together with artists Christian Boltanksi and Bertrand Lavier, conceived do it, an exhibition based entirely on artists’ instructions, which could be followed to create temporary art works for the duration of a show.
do it has challenged traditional exhibition formats, questioned authorship, and championed art’s ability to exist beyond a single gallery space. Since do it began, many new versions have appeared, including do it (museum), do it (tv), and do it (in school). Jérôme Bel's instructions are included in do it exhibition.
Since March 2020, do it has continued to evolve with the relaunch of do it (home), now being shared by over 45 collaborating art spaces around the world. On September 26, 2020, do it opens at the A4 Contemporary Arts Center in Chengdu, China and on October 1, do it opens at the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida where they have worked with students to develop a hybrid in-gallery and online version of the show.
See more
HIC is an artistic research laboratory that for three weeks honours the creative process, not just the result. The artist-researchers take the risk of not knowing what the next day's performance will be about, taking the audience's questions and observations and imagining what will happen next, trying to echo this uncertain and insecure period that we are all living through. It is within this framework that a solo from the same score performed by three dancers will be presented to the public.
See more
Due to a health crisis, the Festival d'Avignon does not take place this summer. But shows, meetings and master classes are programmed all July on radio, on platforms and on television.
France 2 rebroadcasts the recordings of some of its emblematic shows. Cour d'honneur (2013) will thus be broadcast on 24 June and will then be available for replay on its website until 10 October 2020.
In addition, the festival organisers are offering Un rêve de cour, a retrospective of the highlights of the Festival In d'Avignon over the last twenty years. Fifteen shows projected on a giant screen until July 25, including, on 12 July 2020, Cour d'honneur, the performance created by Jérôme Bel for and in this venue in 2013.
Finally, Jérôme Bel's masterclass will be rebroadcast on 10 July 2020 on France Culture.
Thirteen pre-professionals from the Ensemble chorégraphique du Conservatoire national supérieur de Musique et de danse de Paris are participating in a research laboratory directed by Jérôme Bel, from March 16 to May 30, 2020. In the lockdown situation, the research process is based on scores and takes place at a distance, face to face with each of the students, through video and email exchanges.
Jérôme Bel takes part to the conference "The ecological transition : towards an evolution of the performing arts" organized by the association Art&Fac, (student association of the Licence Professionnelle des Métiers de la Médiation par les Approches Artistiques et Culturelles) on Friday 5 March in Rouen.
Jérôme Bel is one of the members of the jury of the Film Festival DocLisboa 2019, which takes place from 17 to 27 October 2019 at Lisbon (Portugal).
For the opening of the LMCC's Art Center at the Governors Island in New York, the choreographer discusses working towards a creative response to the climate emergency, via teleconference, in conjunction with a short excerpt of his latest work, Isadora Duncan, with the dancer, historian, and Duncan specialist, Catherine Gallant.
The talk takes place on September 21 at 2pm.
Since 2000, La Ribot uses video in performances and installations which questions the limits of the body and of "real time" in performing arts. The session is dedicated to the presentation of her master works and current research, discussed by La Ribot and Jérôme Bel.
This discussion takes place on 15 September 2019 at 5pm at Cinéma 1 - Centre Pompidou (Paris).
Jérôme Bel gathers all the different actors of the choreographic field (dancers, presenters, technicians, caterers, producers, costume designers, spectators, choreographers, set designers etc...), in order to evaluate what are the ecological issues that each of them have identified through their own practices and what actions, solutions can be taken to reduce/stop the waste of energy. The goal is to come up with a statement to be shared with the rest of the community abroad.
The Think Tank takes place on 20 and 21 July 2019, at ImPuls Tanz Wien (Austria)
See more
Retrospective by Jérôme Bel has been selected in the French Competition of FIDMarseille, Festival international de Cinéma de Marseille 2019. The festival presents a large number of films in their world premiere as well as first films. Today, the FIDMarseille is recognized as a source of new cinemas, both documentary productions as well as fiction films.
Screenings take place on 13, 14 and 15 July 2019.
The lectures Live Arts and Social Field are organised by La Mutant in Valencia (Spain). They are a laboratory of social imaginary and a space to share creative experiences exploring the social-political issues.
Jérôme Bel is in conversation with Santiago Ribelles Zorita
The lecture takes place, by videoconference, in French with live translation to Spanish, by skype, on 29 June 2019 at 10.30 am.
See more
After Whitechapel Gallery In London, the exhibition Commissions from Performa’s Archives will take place from 20 June to 10 November 2019, at Copenhagen Contemporary. It documents the performances created at the Performa biennale in New York during these ten last years. A recording of the piece Ballet (New York) filmed in the Martha Graham Studios during Performa15 is on view.
Each institution of Programme Commun (Arsenic, Sévelin 36, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne) and of the Expédition Suisse network (Dampfzentrale Bern, Gessnerallee Zürich, Theater Chur, Kaserne Basel, Théâtre de Saint-Gervais Genève, LAC Lugano avec FIT Lugano) selected a young emerging artist to participate to the seminar which takes place from April 4th to 7th 2019 in Lausanne. Eva-Maria Bertschy, dramaturge at the International Institute for Political Murder besides Milo Rau, leads this seminar and invites Jérôme Bel to give a lecture on 5 April 2019.
Jérôme Bel has been invited by Grand Palais (Paris) to create a specific artwork for the exhibition Michael Jackson : On the Wall. In the video Moonwalk, about thirty performers, professionals and amateurs, cross the stage one after the other, performing a movement made famous by Michael Jackson in their own way.
How can a dance step as specific and singular as the Moonwalk be embodied by a wide range of people ?
After Paris, Moonwalk is screened in the same exhibition at Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, from 22 March to 14 July 2019.
From 15 to 18 January 2019, Laboratoire des acteurs nouveaux with Jérôme Bel and Chiara Gallerani, at Salle des 4 Chemins / La Commune CDN d'Aubervilliers.
Theater workshop from Tuesday to Friday from 6 pm to 9 pm
This laboratory is the place where professional stage directors and actors bet on meeting non-professionnal actors, young people from Aubervilliers, young people who just arrived in the country, amateurs adults, to create together a new way to make theater.
See more
Jérôme Bel has been invited to create a specific artwork for the exhibition Michael Jackson : On the Wall at Grand Palais (Paris). In the video Moonwalk, about thirty performers, professionals and amateurs, cross the stage one after the other, performing a movement made famous by Michael Jackson in their own way.
How can a dance step as specific and singular as the Moonwalk be embodied by a wide range of people ?
From the 12th to the 29th september 2018, at the invitation of the Biennale de la Danse, Jérôme Bel presents four of his projects (videos and live) in public spaces in Lyon referencing four key anthropological activities : work, commerce, social life, spiritual life. The resulting trail, which offers a contextualised rereading of the political issues underpinning it, features : the alienation of a dance "labourer", with the testimony of Véronique Doisneau, sujet at the Paris Opera Ballet, projected in a space attached to the memory of the silk workers; a celebration of the values of solidarity with Compagnie Compagnie screened in a community center; a critique of consumerism with Shirtologie in a shop window; and, per Nietzche’s invitation, an occasion for
self-contemplation with the performance Danser comme si personne ne regardait.
On Wednesday 13th December at 5pm, the British Council invites to a discussion between Jérôme Bel, Charlotte Darbyshire and Kate Marsh (Candoco Dance Company), and Marcel Bugiel (Theatre Hora), moderated by Gilles Amalvi, at MC93 in Bobigny.
This talk is followed by a discussion at 6pm between Agnès Chemama (Théâtre national de Chaillot), Elisabeth Garcia (IME La Doucette) and Joanne Lyons (Candoco Dance Company), modérée par Frédéric Le Du (accès culture)
In partnership with Festival d’Automne, Théâtre de la Ville and MC93.
This discussion will take place in the frame of the Portrait dedicated to the French choreographer by Festival d'Automne à Paris.
The exhibition Commissions from Performa’s Archives takes place from 6 September 2017 to 4 March 2018, at Whitechapel Gallery in London. It documents the performances created at the Performa biennale in New York during these ten last years. A recording of the piece Ballet (New York) filmed in the Martha Graham Studios during Performa15 is on view.
The choreographer Jérôme Bel starts his collaboration with the Festival in 2004. In 2017, he presents eight pieces and a film, all iconic of his research on the codes operating in performing art. At the heart of his Portrait, two creations – one of them for the Lyon Opera Ballet – and two historical pieces will be performed for the first time in the Festival.
From October 4th to December 23rd, 2017, in 12 theaters in Paris and the surroundings
See more
This study is the first monograph on the work of French choreographer Jérôme Bel, following his artistic trajectory from the beginning of his career as a choreographer in 1994 to his most recent piece in 2016. It contains an overview and in-depth analysis of all of his choreographies, from Nom donné par l’auteur to Disabled Theater, and provides a theoretical reflection on their theatrical nature.
Bel has developed a singular discourse on dance that has often been labelled 'conceptual'. By reducing the stage elements in his performances to a minimum, his work explores the implications of dance as an art form that has, since the heyday of modernism, based its guiding principles on the laws of nature. Bel addresses the question of power relations in dance by working through the questions of authorship and various forms of subjectivity dance produces. Offering a unique opportunity to ground seemingly abstract academic theories in a specific embodied artistic practice, this study explores the intersection between artistic practice and theory.
Book in English, eBook and hardcover
Buy the book
Screening of the film Disabled Theater followed by a discussion between Jérôme Bel and the members of the Espace Analytique, presented by Marc Antoine Bourdeu, with the participation of psychoanalysts Isée Bernateau, Catherine Saladin, Catherine Vanier and Alain Vanier.
The Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato organizes the first solo exhibition in a museum by the French choreographer Jérôme Bel, curated by Antonia Alampi.
It is time rather than space that characterizes this project. Hence the title 76’38’’ + ∞ which specifically alludes to the duration, to the sum of the lengths of the videos on view: an encouragement to observe the works on display from the beginning to the end, a classical norm in theatres but unusual behaviour in a museum. Here ∞ refers to the countless possibilities of a new dance, an on-going one created specifically for the Pecci Centre: a work without an end designed to be experienced from a few seconds to eternity.
The exhibition 76’38’’ + ∞ is presented through what Jérôme Bel himself refers to as a "dramaturgy of dis-alienation," articulated around five key works created over the past twenty years. From a formal point of view, 76’38’’+ ∞ has a performative component and a filmic one, with live performances taking place every Sunday and another throughout the entire duration of the exhibition.
The book, in English and in Italian, documents the exhibition Jérôme Bel 76'38''+ ∞ at Centro Pecci (Prato) and is designed to provide a general insight into his artistic practice. In addition to a critical text by the theorician Gerald Siegmund who provides a long analysis of Jérôme Bel's research from the nineties to today and a conversation with the curator, Antonia Alampi, in which Jérôme Bel discusses many of the theoretical questions that led him to the creation of his works, the book includes images in large format and a descriptive card of most of its works.
In this book published by Presses du réel, the two dancers and choreographers share and compare ideas and references that underpin their respective work.
In 2009, the Paris Autumn Festival and Le Théâtre de la Ville celebrated the work of Merce Cunningham. On this occasion, Jérôme Bel's Cédric Andrieux and Boris Charmatz's 50 ans de danse were presented to the audience.
The two artists were also asked to engage in a conversation on Merce Cunningham. The conversation soon extended in a one-year email exchange in which Jérôme Bel and Boris Charmatz shared the conceptions and references at the heart of their respective artistic work. Conceived as a comparative study, the discussion reveals the artists' common features and differences on dance and choreography.
First published in 2013 by Presses du Réel, this book is now available in English and online.
MoMA Dance Company brings together MoMA staff members from different departments who will perform in the Atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Based on the guiding principles of solo and group performances, MoMA Dance Company subverts both the idea of a dance company and the typical focus of Artist’s Choice installations on objects. The project explores the social potential of dance to create ephemeral communities, and it reveals the pre-existing, but usually less visible, community of MoMA’s staff. Bringing together senior and junior staff from different departments at the Museum, Bel temporarily suspends usual workplace hierarchies, and the performers embody the tension between work, play, and performance.
