15 young people aged 16 to 22 have entered into a project that began in January 1998, with a programme structured around contemporary art. These first meetings have yielded initial answers to the questions that these young people were asking: Why are these artists interested in us? What use will contemporary dance, the visual arts and architecture be to us? What’s in it for us?

More information: mathildemonnier.com

Mathilde Monnier holds a reference position in the French and international contemporary dance landscape. Her creations continuously defy expectations thanks to constant renewal. Her nomination as director of the Centre Chorégraphique de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon in 1994 has initiated a series of collaborations with people coming from different artistic domains. From artist Beverly Semmes to philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy from film director Claire Denis, Mathilde Monnier has always pushed the boundaries of a work she sees as an experience above all. Musical creation holds an important position with very varied collaborations within the fields of popular as well as scholarly music - jazz musician Louis Sclavis, composers David Moss and Heiner Goebbels, virtuoso platinist eriKm. More recently, she has used PJ Harvey's rock music but also the pink pop settings 2008 vallée, the show she co-created with singer Philippe Katerine. It came to a glorious end in the Main Courtyard at the 2008 Avignon festival. Fascinated by the concept of unison, she created the pastoral Tempo 76 show at the Montpellier Danse 07 festival on Gyôrgy Ligeti's music. In february 2008 she was commissionned by the Berlin Philarmonic Orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle to choreograph Heiner Goebbels opera, Surrogate Cities. More than 130 amateurs went on stage to take part to an opera dealing with the city and the power struggle within. The same year, she presented the burlesque duet Gustavia in which she appeared along with spanish performance artist La Ribot at the Montpellier Danse 08 festival. In 2009, she created Pavlova 3'23'', in reference to the classical ballet The Death of The Swan. In 2010, working in close collaboration with visual artist Dominique Figarella, Mathilde Monnier created the show Soapéra, and subsequently paid homage to Merce Cunningham by way of the show Un américain à paris. In 2011, together with choreographer Loïc Touzé and writer Tanguy Viel, Mathilde Monnier created Nos images, a work focusing on film. Together with Jean-François Duroure, she restaged Pudique acide / Extasis at the Festival Montpellier Danse 11, two duos that the choreographers created in 1984 and 1985.

Source : Mathilde Monnier 

En savoir plus : www.mathildemonnier.com 

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