Having trained in ballet and contemporary dance at the Rambert School of Dance, Noëlle Simonet worked in several companies: the Ballet Théâtre Contemporain d’Angers, the Ballet Théâtre Français de Nancy and the Ballet Théâtre du Silence.  She performed the works of several renowned choreographers, such as F. Blaska, G. Balanchine, L. Falco, M. Cunningham, V. Farber and D. Gordon.

Whilst carrying on her work with choreographers M. Caserta, J-M Matos et Philippe Tresserra, she continued to study the “Pilatess” technique, and in 1986 Simonet won the performance prize at the first Concours Chorégraphique de la Ville de Paris (Choreography Competition of the City of Paris).

In 1997, having trained in the analysis and scripting of movement at the Paris Conservatoire under Jacqueline Challet-Haas, she created the Labkine Company.  Her goal here was to convey the richness of the dance repertoire by reconstructing works from their music scores and sharing them with an audience.

-At the start of the century she worked with Elisabeth Schwartz, a dance specialist, and performed some of Isadora Duncan’s works.

-In 2007 and 2008 she reimagined the works of the ‘New Dance Group’ collection and ‘Rooms’ by Anna Sokolow with Jean-Marc Piquemal, and in 2009 created the performance ‘Dancing Red’ and the lecture-performance "Le Répertoire en mouvement, étude révolutionnaire".  Parallel to her activities within the Labkine Company, from 1999 Noëlle Simonet taught Laban’s system of movement at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.  

-Simonet worked together with the internationally renowned dancer Wilfride Piollet on the creation of her book “Les Barres Flexibles”, published by “L’une et l’autre”, which records the set of exercises in Laban “cinetography” which form the dancer’s innovative training technique.

-She notes Jean Guizerix’s choreography “Cahiers 1830”, crafted from exercises Léon Michel recorded for his son Arthur Saint-Léon.

She trained in Body Mind Centering® (Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen), lead by Vera Orlock and Thomas Griel, and qualified as a Somatic Movement Educator in 2013.

From 2006 to 2009 she was part of the ICKL (International Council of Kinétographie Laban) research committee.

In 2011 and 2013 she was given grants by the Centre National de la Danse de Pantin, as part of their scheme aiding research and dance heritage, for the following projects: The choreographic score -a tool for transmission, a tool for creation - #1 The rough sketch of the journey, and the second section: #2 shifts and turns.

In 2015, she created the performance “SIGNATURES”, a duet about walking and space inspired by the spatial signatures of the great choreographers D. Humphrey, L. Childs and M. Cunningham, in collaboration with the dancer, assessor and choreographer Raphaël Cottin.

She extends her collaborations to reflexion and research groups.  In 2015 she took part in the Labodanse group, comprising of dance-science and philosophy workshops and symposia.  Since 2014 she has worked on several occasions with the Gepetto human robotics research team LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse, lead by Jean-Paul Lammond.

In 2015, the Centre National de la Danse de Pantin, in collaboration with the Opéra de Paris, commissioned her to revive Kurt Jooss’ “L’après-midi d’un faune”, with two of the Opéra de Paris’ dancers.  This was presented as part of the CND “Scène de gestes” programme in November 2015.

Source : www.labkine.com/