Foofwa d'Imobilité presents “Benjamin de Bouillis”, a solo inspired by a study of the neurologist, Olaf Blanke, on ‘decorporation' (the sensation of being able to perceive your own body from the outside, as if it was alien, from a distance). Foofwa plays on the mise-en-abîme, not only of the body but also of the person who is supposed to recognize himself within. A piece of work on the identity of the dancer, a reflection of oneself as if one was another (ref. “La Passion d'être un autre” (The Passion of Being Another), “Étude pour la danse” (Study for the Dance) by Pierre Legendre). The work is also enhanced by a character from James Joyce's “Finnegan's Wake”. In this novel, the actor Benjamin de Bouillis plays the avatars of the human comedy, whereas his twin brother, a professional mime artist, caricatures them.            
Foofwa d'Imobilité breathes life into this character; his “Benjamin de Bouillis” places great emphasis on the analogies between pathological cases and the work of the choreographer-performer. And, through dance, illustrates the many and varied phenomena of duplicity. The soundtrack also uses an array of voices to express the strangeness of being both a body and a brain, not to mention being a soul…

Source: Maison de la Danse of Lyon performance programme

“Yesterday, while crossing the street
I remembered
I had seen
Bare-headed
Someone that seemed familiar to me
I only saw myself once last year
I seemed
To be in the air
A few centimetres above the ground.”

(extract from the soundtrack: Gérard Manset, “Le Paradis Terrestre”, taken from the album “La mort d'Orion”, 1970)

Dancer, performer, choreographer, dance educator & artistic director of the Neopost Foofwa Company.

Foofwa occupies a pivotal position between tradition and innovation  in the choreographic field. Dancer at the Stuttgart Ballet and then at  the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, choreographer since 1998. Since 2000  with his company Neopost Foofwa, he has been studying the relationship  between dance and sport and invented the “Dancerun”, a hybrid activity  between running and dancing over several kilometers (2003). He also  studies the relationship between audience and choreographic work in The Making of Spectacles (2008) and Quai du Sujet (2007); the digital body in Media Vice Versa (2002), Avatar dance series, Second Live series (videos) and BodyToys (2007); the historicity of the dancing body in Descendance (2000), Le Show (2001), MIMESIX (2005), Benjamin de Bouillis (2005), Musings (2009), Pina Jackson in Mercemoriam (2009), and Histoires Condansées  (2011). He has been commissioned by the Nederlands Dans Theater II, the  Ballet de Berne, the Ballet Junior de Genève, in 2010 by the SACD and  the Festival d’Avignon with Au Contraire, in 2012 by the  Théâtre de la Fenice. He has been supported annually by the Geneva and  Swiss public authorities since 2002, received the Leenaards Foundation  grant in 1999 and the prize of the prestigious Foundation for  Contemporary Arts in New York in 2009. He won, among others, the  Lausanne Prize in 1987, the Bessie Award of New York in 1995 “in  recognition of outstanding creative achievement; for the innovation,  speed and clarity of dance that galvanized a remarkable Cunningham  company”, the Swiss Prize for Dance and Choreography in 2006 because  “Foofwa occupies a pivotal position between tradition and the  avant-garde” and the Swiss Dance Prize category “outstanding dancer” in  2013: “Foofwa d’Imobilité challenges us and breaks with convention. His  artistic radicalism is based on the exceptional technical ability he has  repeatedly demonstrated in Switzerland and abroad. His works often go  against contemporary minimalism.” They are rather “surmodern”, in the  sense of Marc Augé, because they are linked to the overabundance of  information in our contemporary societies. His most recent pieces or  performances focus on a practice of “being-here-present” that allows the  works to be permeable to unpredictability, spontaneity and  authenticity. Between 2015 and 2018, he led in close collaboration with  Jonathan O’Hear the Utile/Inutile project, a vast undertaking centered  on creation, pedagogy, mediation, historiography and choreographic  succession: /Utile: Redonner Corps (2015), /Inutile: Don Austerity (2015-16), In/Utile: Incorporate (2017) & /Unitile  (2018). Since 2018, he has been experimenting with his company a new  way of creating & touring with the GLocal project (18-present) in  order to produce and disseminate his works based on ethical and social  values. The Dancewalk, with its multiple artistic collaborators and  partner structures, is its flagship production.

Source and more information

foofwa.com

Author, filmmaker and video artist Charles Picq (1952-2012) entered working life in the 70s through theatre and photography. A- fter resuming his studies (Maîtrise de Linguistique - Lyon ii, Maîtrise des sciences et Techniques de la Communication - grenoble iii), he then focused on video, first in the field of fine arts at the espace Lyonnais d'art Contemporain (ELAC) and with the group « Frigo », and then in dance.
   On creation of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon in 1980, he was asked to undertake a video documentation project that he has continued ever since. During the ‘80s, a decade marked in France by the explosion of contemporary dance and the development of video, he met numerous artists such as andy Degroat, Dominique Bagouet, Carolyn Carlson, régine Chopinot, susanne Linke, Joëlle Bouvier and regis Obadia, Michel Kelemenis. He worked in the creative field with installations and on-stage video, as well as in television with recorded shows, entertainment and documentaries.

His work with Dominique Bagouet (80-90) was a unique encounter. He documents his creativity, assisting with Le Crawl de Lucien and co-directing with his films Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux and 10 anges. in the 90s he became director of video development for the Maison de la Danse and worked, with the support of guy Darmet and his team, in the growing space of theatre video through several initiatives:
       - He founded a video library of dance films with free public access. This was a first for France. Continuing the video documentation of theatre performances, he organised their management and storage.
       - He promoted the creation of a video-bar and projection room, both dedicated to welcoming school pupils.
       - He started «présentations de saisons» in pictures.
       - He oversaw the DVD publication of Le tour du monde en 80 danses, a pocket video library produced by the Maison de la Danse for the educational sector.

       - He launched the series “scènes d'écran” for television and online. He undertook the video library's digital conversion and created Numeridanse.

His main documentaries are: enchaînement, Planète Bagouet, Montpellier le saut de l'ange, Carolyn Carlson, a woman of many faces, grand ecart, Mama africa, C'est pas facile, Lyon, le pas de deux d'une ville, Le Défilé, Un rêve de cirque.

He has also produced theatre films: Song, Vu d'ici (Carolyn Carlson), Tant Mieux, Tant Mieux, 10 anges, Necesito and So schnell, (Dominique Bagouet), Im bade wannen, Flut and Wandelung (Susanne Linke), Le Cabaret Latin (Karine Saporta), La danse du temps (Régine Chopinot), Nuit Blanche (Abou Lagraa), Le Témoin (Claude Brumachon), Corps est graphique (Käfig), Seule et WMD (Françoise et Dominique Dupuy), La Veillée des abysses (James Thiérrée), Agwa (Mourad Merzouki), Fuenteovejuna (Antonio Gades), Blue Lady revistied (Carolyn Carlson).

Source: Maison de la Danse de Lyon