Pedro Pauwels' educational carte blanche

These days, scientific and technological advances allow variations in the electrical activity of the muscles, the moving joints and the brain to be picked up by means of electrodes on the dancer's body and transformed into sound signals.

Building on the experience of his most recent production “Sens”, at the crossroads where dance, science and new technology meet, Pedro Pauwels offers, by way of an “educational carte blanche”, to work with the sounds specific to each family of muscles, based on the concept of “muscular melody”. The sound therefore becomes a means of transposing the sensory experience of the dancer, while at the same time forming a constituent element of the choreographic composition.

This specific relationship between music and dance relies in part on feedback effects, which opens up a whole range of possibilities for improvisations and compositions, as musical as they are choreographic. The dancer can choose to improvise on the melody or to act upon it.

This new parameter explores the “musicality of the dancer” and offers another angle from which to approach the concept.

Trained at the Rosella Hightower Centre in Cannes, Pedro Pauwels has worked for Karine Saporta, Odile Duboc, Elisabeth Disdier, Patrick Le Doaré and Anne-Marie Reynaud. He founded his own company in 1990 and since then numerous productions have confirmed his talent as a choreographer without ever interrupting his career as a dancer.

Updating: March 2010

Belgian-born Pedro Pauwels attended his first dance classes at the Renate Peter School in Brussels, then obtained a scholarship to the Rosella Hightower Centre, Cannes, where he studied classical, jazz and modern dance, therapy and music theory. He joined the Cannes Jeune Ballet International, where he worked on contemporary repertoire. Here he met some of the big names in dance, such as Dominique Bagouet, Mathilde Monnier, Peter Goss, Viola Farber, Jean-François Duroure and Bella Lewitsky.

As a member of the Compagnie Karine Saporta – CCN de Caen, he took part in several works during 1989 and 1990, including “Les Taureaux de Chimène”, as well as dance sequences in the films “Prospero's Book” by Peter Greenaway and “Le Diable au Corps” by Gérard Vergez. During this same period, he collaborated with the Companie Alain Marty. Then, with the Compagnie d'Odile Duboc – CCN de Belfort, he was involved in the choreography of “La Maison d'Espagne” and the revival of “Repères” in 1991, the preparation of a model for the Paris Opéra in 1992 and the creation of “Projet de Matière” in 1993.

In addition, since 1990 Pedro Pauwels has regularly been invited to teach on various courses in France and internationally, at the Rosella Hightower Centre in Cannes, CND in Pantin and Lyon, Laval, Chartres, Venice, Seoul… In November 1990 he founded his own company with support from the PePau Association, and presented his first choreography “L'Insoupçonnée” in 1991.

During 1992 he became more fully involved in choreography: “A mes côtés”, performed by his own company, a commission from Opéra du Rhin for “La Khovantchina”, and “Ecume de rêve”, devised for the Cannes Jeune Ballet International. He also choreographed the ballets for Gounod's “Roméo et Juliette”, which opened the season at the new Opéra-Théâtre, Massy.

Since then, his career as a choreographer has been closely linked with PePau, whose momentum and creativity he embodies: one or two new works per year, show/event design, regular dissemination of repertoire (chosen by Bancs d'Essais Internationaux in 1994-95, Iles-de-danse 1998, Seoul International Festival in 1998 and 2000), awareness-raising projects in partnership with French state education, ADIAMs, ADDAs, host theatres, local councils…

He is keen to compose in collaboration with other disciplines – theatre, hip-hop dance, improvised or techno music – and continues to work regularly as a performer or guest choreographer with the Jeune Ballet de France at the Paris Conservatoire (Junior Ballet), in Tunisia and in Martinique.

For three years from 2003, Pedro Pauwels focused on science and technology. He established links with University of Caen and its laboratory and with the Enghien-les-Bains Centre. Then, with his “Sens” triptych project, he began devising a choreography and technical mechanism which allows dance to be read through sound and feeling.

In 2006 the company took “Sens 1” on a tour of central Africa, after it was chosen by the dance commission of AFAA.

In 2007 Pedro Pauwels returned to North Africa to present “Pliage(s)” as part of the Cairo International Festival in Egypt and the Carthage Choreographic Encounters in Tunisia.

Updating: November 2010

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.).