Xavier Le Roy holds a doctorate in molecular biology from the  University of Montpellier, France, and has worked as artist since 1991.  Since 2018 works as Professor at the Institute for Applied Theater  Studies in Giessen (Germany). He has performed with diverse companies  and choreographers. From 1996 to 2003, he was artist-in-residence at the  Podewil in Berlin. In 2007-2008 he was “Associated Artist”at Centre  Chorégraphique National de Montpellier, France. In 2010 Le Roy is an  Artist in Residence fellow at the MIT Program in Art Culture and  Technology (Cambridge, MA). In 2012, he begins a 3 years residency at  Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, Paris. Through his solo works such as  « Self Unfinished (1998) » and « Product of Circumstances (1999) », he  has opened new perspectives in the field of choreography.

At the same time, he initiated projects exploring the modes of  production and collaboration in group works: "E.X.T.E.N.S.I.O.N.S."  (1999-2000), "Project" (2003) and "6 Months 1 Location" (2008).
His  works such as the soli "Le Sacre du Printemps" (2007), "Untitled"  (2014), the group piece "low pieces" (2011), and works for exhibition  spaces such as "production" (2011) created together with Mårten  Spångberg, "Untitled" (2012) for the exhibition 12 Rooms,  "Retrospective" first realized in 2012 at the Tapiès  Foundation-Barcelona, "Temporary Title, 2015" created at Sydney in the  frame of John Kaldor Public Art Project or "For The Unfaithful Replica"  (2016) in collaboration with Scarlet Yu at CA2M Madrid; produce  situations that explore the relationships between spectactors / visitors  / performers and the production of subjectivities.

His works produce situations that question, the relationships between  spectators/visitors and performers and are attempt to transform or  reconfigure dichotomies such as: object / subject, animal / human,  machine / human, nature / culture, public / private, form / unform.

In 2017, together with Ensemble Issho Ni they create for the Ensemble  Modern in Frankfurt: the exhibition "Haben Sie "Modern" gesagt?", and  he developped, together with Scarlet Yu, "Still Untitled", a work for  public spaces commissioned by Skulptur Projekte Münster 2017.

Source: Xavier Leroy website

More information: www.xavierleroy.com/

Catherine Diverrès has said, “Conscience, our relationship with others, this is what creates time”, ever since her first choreographic creation. She is a sort of strange meteor, appearing in the landscape of contemporary dance in the mid-80’s. She stood out almost immediately in her rejection of the tenets of post-modern American dance and the classically-based vocabularies trending at that time. She trained at the Mudra School in Brussels under the direction of Maurice Béjart, and studied the techniques of José Limón, Merce Cunningham and Alwin Nikolais before joining the company of Dominique Bagouet in Montpellier, then deciding to set out on her own choreographic journey.

Her first work was an iconic duo, Instance, with Bernardo Montet, based upon a study trip she took to Japan in 1983, during which she worked with one of the great masters of butoh, Kazuo Ohno. This marked the beginning of the Studio DM. Ten years later she was appointed director of the National Choreographic Center in Rennes, which she directed until 2008.

Over the years, Catherine Diverrès has created over thirty pieces, created her own dance language, an extreme and powerful dance, resonating with the great changes in life, entering into dialogues with the poets: Rilke, Pasolini and Holderlin, reflecting alongside the philosophers Wladimir Jankelevich and Jean-Luc Nancy, focusing also on the transmission of movement and repertoire in Echos, Stances and Solides and destabilising her own dancing with the help of the plastician Anish Kapoor in L’ombre du ciel.

Beginning in 2000, she began adapting her own style of dance by conceiving other structures for her creations: she improvised with the music in Blowin, developed projects based on experiences abroad, in Sicily for Cantieri, and with Spanish artists in La maison du sourd. Exploring the quality of stage presence, gravity, hallucinated images, suspensions, falls and flight — the choreographer began using her own dance as a means of revealing, revelation, unmasking, for example in Encor, in which movements and historical periods are presented. Diverrès works with the body to explore the important social and aesthetic changes of today, or to examine memory, the way she did in her recent solo in homage to Kazuo Ohno, O Sensei.

And now the cycle is repeating, opening on a new period of creation with the founding of Diverrès’ new company, Association d’Octobre, and the implantation of the company in the city of Vannes in Brittany. Continuing on her chosen path of creation and transmission, the choreographer and her dancers have taken on a legendary figure, Penthesilea, the queen of the Amazons, in Penthésilée(s). In returning to group and collective work, this new work is indeed another step forward in the choreographer’s continuing artistic journey.

Source: Irène Filiberti, website of the company Catherine Diverrès

More information: compagnie-catherine-diverres.com

A classical  dancer and self-taught teacher in Aix-en-Provence, Odile Duboc created her own school Les Ateliers de la danse in the 1970s. In 1983, she created  the association Contre jour, with her partner and lighting designer, Françoise Michel. In  1990 and until the end of 2008, she directed the Franche-Comté National Choreographic Center in Belfort, where she succeeded Joanne Leighton. In 1993, she created the work Projet de la matière, a milestone in the history of the new French dance. She  will be recognized as an important choreographer of French dance, and  will stage many shows and operas for various institutions, including the National Center for Contemporary Dance in Angers. She died of cancer on April 23, 2010 at the age of 69.