From her point of departure as a dancer, Ingun Bjørnsgaard’s strong visual approach to dance swiftly brought her to choreography. Educated at Statens Balletthøgskole, Norway, she moved directly to New York to dance at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, whose choreographic parameters still echo within the foundations of her work. Bjørnsgaard’s combination of formal precision and everyday pathos has been rewarded with a number of prestigious prizes and she is commissioned to work with prominent companies such as the Norwegian National Ballet, Carte Blanche, CCN - Ballet de Lorraine, Tanztheater Bremen, Komische Oper, Berlin, and GöteborgsOperans Danskompani. Through her own company, she has been able to rigorously follow her artistic vision together with an outstanding ensemble of dancers who sensitively engage in the creation of movement and dramaturgy. A focus on commissioned contemporary music in relation to music from the past, has always been an important part of the artistic process, and Ingun Bjørnsgaard’s restructuring of the present by means of historical elements from the basis of modernism. In her early works, she explored mythical female muses in award-winning performances such as Virgins in Norwegian Landscapes (1992) and Sleeping Beauty (1994). Bjørnsgaard’s exceptional take on the fleeting fragility of modern identity and its social foundations, gradually ventured into the complex relationship between the feminine and masculinity, in both men and women. An elevated intertextual dialogue with other art forms has evolved, with reference to e.g. Alain Resnais and Henrik Ibsen in Book of Songs (2002) and Hedda (2013), Monteverdi in Poppea (2009) and Edvard Munch in Omega and the Deer (2011). Ingun Bjørnsgaard’s company enjoys funding through the Arts Council Norway.

Source : Ingun Bjørnsgaard Prosjekt 

More information : http://ingunbp.no/

From live stage images to life in images, the  director and video artist Karim Zeriahen seems to have found the  shortest way. Since the beginning of the 90s, when he worked in close  relationship with choreographer Philippe Decouflé, he learned how to put  the art of stage in motion, contemporary dance most of the time. Karim  Zeriahen then starts a fruitful collaboration with Montpellier based  choreographer Mathilde Monnier. Stop, Videlilah, day of night, short  films adapted from her stage creations. Each time, Karim Zeriahen's   camera takes over the place with movement, the body language is not  frozen but magnified. Choreographer Herman Diephuis also joins this  gallery of dancing portraits. Documentaries on figures such like Albert  Maysles or Hubert de Givenchy and from Joe Dalessandro to Paul  Morrissey, he sets a signature, a camera always in action with  confidence.

Today the director goes further with a new  project and tracks the subtle movements of the body language beyond the  physical appearance. A collection of living portraits as unique pièces  reminding us of the master portraitists of renaissance. These living  natures consists in filming the subject in a certain amount of time,  almost still, with signs of respiration, eye blinks, as if it were  posing for a painting. They are then displayed on a flat screen with a  memory card. With this collection starting, Karim Zeriahen, with his  documentary and artist vision, interrogates himself about the virtual  world filled with images. By taking a pause, and his models with him, he  questions the way we look at things, the way we look at life.

Source: Philippe Noisette 

En savoir plus: www.karimzeriahen.com

Since acquiring the CCN title in 1999, the Centre Chorégraphique National - Ballet de Lorraine has dedicated itself to supporting contemporary choreographic creation. As of July 2011 the organization is under the general and artistic direction of Petter Jacobsson.
The CCN – Ballet de Lorraine and its company of 26 dancers is one of the most important companies working in Europe, performing contemporary creations while retaining and programming a rich and extensive repertory, spanning our modern history, made up of works by some of our generations most highly regarded choreographers.
The CCN functions as an art center and venue for multiple possibilities in the fields of research, experimentation and artistic creation. It is a platform open to many different disciplines, a space where the many visions of dance of today may meet. 

More information : http://ballet-de-lorraine.eu