© Chloé Magdelaine

A Warm Up Session to discover the gestures of society and to get to grips with bodies, their limits, their pains as well as their fears.

"To undo or to battle it out? This is the daily question that guides me to the studio.
Unravelling society's gestures is a drug, like pulling on a jumper's thread. Unravelling is a battle with the body, its limits, its pains as well as its fears. I oscillate then, demanding not to stray from the subject: What have we done with empathy?"
Phia Ménard

This invitation to movement is followed by a discussion with Madeleine Planeix-Crocker, curator of the Warm Up Sessions cycle.

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Warm Up Sessions are based on a desire to discover, embody and collectively analyse training techniques in performance. Warm Up Sessions aim to position the warm-up as an essential step in the creation of a performance. Thus, training is understood as a starting point for choreographic, theatrical and performance production, a process of both sharing and reflection. Through inclusive invitations, Warm Up Sessions seek to deconstruct the silos erected between movement and thought. The cycle offers a space for practice and a platform for discussion for all, developed in consultation with the guests. In this field of experimentation, audiences become active participants, giving rise to an ephemeral and recurring event.

Phia Ménard is the artistic director and performer of the Compagnie Non Nova, which she founded in Nantes in 1998 with the desire to take a different look at juggling and its scenic and dramaturgical treatment.

"Non nova, sednove" (We don't invent anything, we see it differently) is a founding precept. In 2008, she initiated a research process entitled "I.C.E" for "Injonglabilité Complémentaire des Eléments" (Complementary Injunctibility of Elements), which consists of a creative, intellectual and imaginative approach to the notion of transformation, erosion or sublimation of natural materials such as ice, water, wind... and their interactions with human, physical or psychic behaviour. Several cycles have been initiated since 2008: Les Pièces de Glace: "P.P.P. ", "ICE MAN" and "Black Monodie"; The Wind Pieces: "L'après-midi d'un foehn version 1", "L'après-midi d'un foehn", "VORTEX" and "Les Os Noirs"; The Water and Steam Pieces: "Belle d'Hier" and "Saison Sèche"; The Sublimation Pieces: "No Way" and "La Trilogie des Contes Immoraux(pour Europe)". Her shows have been performed in France and around the world in more than 50 countries. In January 2014, she was promoted to the rank of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Madeleine Planeix-Crocker is Associate Curator at Lafayette Anticipations.

 

Madeleine is also co-director of the "Troubles, Dissidences et Esthétiques" Chair at the Beaux-Arts de Paris and a permanent member of the Scientific Research Council of the ESAD, Reims.

A graduate of Princeton University in cultural studies, Madeleine earned a Master's degree in Media, Art and Creation from HEC Paris and a Master's degree from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). There she led an arts-based research-action project with Women Safe non-profit, where she now facilitates a theater and creative writing workshop. Madeleine is currently a PhD candidate at the EHESS (CRAL), studying practices for commoning in contemporary performance.

She has been practicing dance and theater since childhood.