Explaining climate change to children: this is the challenge that French choreographer Jonas Chéreau has set himself with Temps de Baleine [Whale Time]. The starting point of this new production is Baleine [Whale], a burlesque staging of a very serious meteorological study in 2019. Working from this “weather dance”, as he calls it, Jonas Chéreau wished to create a form adapted to young audiences, explaining for them the major issues that global warming holds for their future. Based on a playful dialogue between words and dance, Temps de Baleine invites children to imagine their own interpretation, “like poetry that can be read in either direction”. Individual emotions resonate in natural phenomena; Jonas Chéreau, alone on stage, navigates between winds and storms to give them substance, using a gentle touch of absurdity. An appeal to the imagination that does not fail to answer one of the central questions of our time: what exactly is the problem with the climate?

Source: programme of the CN D

Having completed a history degree, he studied at the CNDC in Angers as part of the choreography artist training programme developed by Emmanuelle Huynh. In summer 2009 he took part in the DanceWeb experience, coached by Philipp Gehmacher and Christine de Smedt during the Impulstanz festival in Vienna. In this same context, he took part in the piece All Cunningham, 50 Years of Dance (Flip Book) by Boris Charmatz.         
Between 2008 and 2014, Jonas Chéreau performed in France in pieces by Daniel Larrieu (LUX, Marche, danses de verdure, Dardanus), Laure Bonicel (Bad seeds), by Fanny de Chaillé and Philippe Ramette (Passage à l’acte), and Mickaël Phelippeau (Set-up). In Belgium he also performed in projects by Sara Manente (Faire un four) and Lilia Mestre (Moving You).
Jonas Chéreau has recently worked on the project by comedian Jacques Bonnaffé, Nature aime à se cacher, created for the Festival d'Avignon during Sujets à Vifs, organised by the SACD in 2011, then Chassez le naturel created for the Théâtre de la Bastille.
He has also choreographed his own pieces with Madeleine Fournier, Les interprètes ne sont pas à la hauteur, created in 2011, and Sexe symbole (pour approfondir le sens du terme) created in 2013.        
In 2014 he took part in the new piece by Anne Collod, Le parlement des invisibles.

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).