What must a performer do in order to dance, really dance? He plunges into his imagination, trying to abandon his training, his knowledge, his savoir-faire. He ventures into a rhythmical, physical narrative. A narrative of the senses.
What does he encounter in this place? His memories? His future? Those who watch him?
To approach these states of dance we have practiced hypnotism and telepathy. We have created frameworks for exposure and appearance with simple characteristics; we have invented a deep, indiscernible hinterland.  The dances which are shown one after the other are but one endlessly reinvented dance.
It is a kind of collective ritual that requires everyone's attention and accompaniment, that allows the dance to embody and to reveal that which goes beyond our expectations.
LOÏC TOUZÉ

"Throughout the past ten years choreographers and dancers have incesssantly put their own practice into crisis a practice based on technique, rigour and performance: «What must a performer do in order to dance, to really dance?»  This question has structured the whole contemporary dance landscape from Jérôme Bel to Boris Charmatz, from Alain Buffard to Olivier Dubois, Emmanuelle Huynh or Loïc Touzé. After ten years of work in Rennes, Loïc Touzé has created a performance piece which questions the act of dancing and the very fabric of movement. This question takes the form of a ritual for six dancers who display themselves without artifice. The piece, judiciously titled « the chance » gives the performers the unique possibility to ask themselves exactly what it is they are doing when they are in “a state of dance». The process is incontestably fascinating and gives much more in return than something simply spectacular. In deciding not to show dance in order to give more time to think about it, artists risk locking themselves into a world without windows. With this piece, one could say that Loïc Touzé has attained a new limit, which offers him the chance to write a whole new chapter."
BRUNO TACKELS, Mettre en scène l’indiscipline, mouvement.net, december 2009 

2010: Loïc Touzé settles in Nantes. He engages with Anne Kerzerho "Autour de la Table". This project questions the plurality of knowledge and practises surrounding the body in different cultural contexts and the interchange between them. During the 2009/2010 season Loïc Touzé createsLa Chance at the Mettre en Scène festival (Rennes).

"La Chance" follows a line of investigation by presenting evidence into the relationship between the act of dancing such as it engages a performer in the immediacy of the stage, and the choreography in as much as it consists of coming forth in the form of writing. “To see without eyes, to feel without skin, to hear by weight, to understand that the floor is a source of imagination. To think in movement and to not be afraid of what you might encounter in the state of dance.” We can go back to "Morceau" (2001-2005), a piece conceived as an amalgam of micro-performances, to discover the start of this questioning of theatrical engagement, the expectations about a show and see the way it has informed the skills of the art-performance.
With Latifa Laâbissi (co-director of Compagnie 391 with Loïc Touzé at this time), Yves-Noël Genod and Jennifer Lacey, "Morceau" took part in restoring some of the elements which conventional stage writing is habitually driven to abandon. In 2003 "Love", then 9 in 2007 deepened the relationship with visual artist Jocelyn Cottencin. A resolved mastery of the stage and investment in firstly the discussion about how to disseminate the gesture and secondly to renounce and return to the initial intentions behind this. Rigorous and audacious, these principles of investigation call into question the very implications of the choreographic act. This is after all achieved by way of ambitious approaches coming from a unique point of view. In the position of choreographer Loïc Touzé seems to continue to stimulate and stubbornly question the movements produced by the performer so he can attain the highest level so much the sooner. Throughout this process, we remark the renewal of critical appraisal, ensuring that the formal foundations of this progression are particularly robust.

Born in 1964, Loïc Touzé entered the school of the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris at 10 years old. From 1982 he danced in the troupe (Nureyev period) all the while taking part in numerous creations at the heart of GRCOP directed by Jacques Garnier. This was the case until he resigned in order to turn to New Dance and then he joined projects by Carolyn Carlson, Mathilde Monnier – who became one of his creative partners –, Jean-François Duroure, Catherine Diverrès and Bernardo Montet (1986-1991). The foundation of his own company with Fabienne Compet (1991) began a great period of exploration, sharpened by the discoveries on stage or in training of Dominique Bagouet (via Olivia Grandville) and Julyen Hamilton (contact-improvisation). The solo version of "Dans les Allées, les Allées",... (1995) enjoyed great success, questioning the fundamentals of choreographic writing. A whole series of projects touched upon space in relation to representation from wasteland in Bilbao with visual artist Francisco Ruiz de Infante to the Centre d’Art Contemporain de la Ferme du Buisson where "Un bloc" (1997) thwarted the principles of interactivity which were currently in vogue. In this tradition, "S’il y a Lieu" put to work a reduced setting where the evidence of the dance is ruined by being subject to commentary (1999).

To analyse the preparation of a dancer and his work, Loïc Touzé immersed himself for a whole year in the experience of Mohini Attam who trained Brigitte Châtaigner. In his solo Elucidation with saxophonist Claude Delangle (IRCAM 2004), as with numerous other works, Loïc Touzé instituted a dialogue capable of improvisation with musicians Pascal Contet, Joëlle Léandre, Vincent Courtois, Jeanne Added, Cookie and Gilles Coronado.
Installed in Rennes in 1999, Loïc Touzé activated the social and collective conditions of invention, production and diffusion in the field of choreography. "Déplacer" (2000, a co-production with La Criée Centre d'art contemporain) presented and used the work of Catherine Contour, Myriam Gourfink, Xavier Leroy, Alain Michard, Jennifer Lacey and Jocelyn Cottencin. In the Paris region Loïc Touzé co-directed the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers with Yvane Chapuis and François Piron (2001-2006), while assisting the emergence of the Rennes based project, Aéroport International, a collective of artists who contributed to the realisation of Le Garage, a space for innovative new work.
Counting himself amongst the Signataires du 20 août, Loïc Touzé has invested much thought into the teaching of dance. Co-author of 10 propositions pour une école, he has developed an important teaching role for himself at the heart of the TNB school, at the university of Rennes or Paris 8, at the CNDC in Angers and within the Ex.e.r.ce training of the CCN of Montpellier as well as an increasingly bigger role in overseas teaching. (Forum Dança - Lisbon, Impuls Tanz - Vienna, Tsekh summer school – Moscow, Instituto Universitario de Arte – Buenos Aires). 

Source : Loïc Touzé 's website (Gérard Mayen)

More information : loictouze.com

As an author and director of documentary films in the Pays de la Loire region, and internationally since 2009, my mission is to show how society creates its own problems by giving voice to people living, in a way, in the margins of a community. I support a cinematographic and experimental form of documentary making which gives as much importance to the image as it does to the dialogue to create meaning.

Source : La Plateforme

The organisation Machine Machine was created in 2008 by a group of video artists based in Nantes.  This audiovisual production organisation supports projects from diverse backgrounds, and promotes contemporary creation both in France and on an international scale.  From creative documentaries to experimental fiction, the group questions the image as a medium for emotion and as a method of expression in our world.  Machine Machine works with other artistics formats, such as dance, music, theatre, and contemporary art, as a way of keeping itself open to new creative perspectives.  The association also works on sensitisation to the image, through video workshops for young people, initiating them into the creative mindset and developing their knowledge of cinematography.
Source : Machine Machine
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