Today, Numeridanse is a platform that provides access to a unique video collection, enriched by more than forty national and international contributors. To understand and discover the world of dance, playful and narrative experiences around works, artists and artistic trends are also offered in the different spaces of the platform. 

But how did this crazy project come about? And by whom? Here is a virtual exhibition that will allow us to answer all the questions you might ask yourself about Numeridanse, also an opportunity to tell you our story, and especially that of the platform ...

To understand the origins of the project, we have to go back to Lyon in 1980, the year in which the Maison de la danse in Lyon was created. In this theater, the place given to the recording of shows is immediate: everything is filmed! The theater program is very eclectic: butoh, flamenco, classical, modern and contemporary dance from all continents and through the ages. 

Charles Picq - who becomes the official director of the Maison de la danse and the Biennale de la danse, will make more than 1000 videos in his career! Realizing very quickly the importance of transmitting and sharing these films, he quickly sought a way to make them available to as many people as possible.

These archives, in fact, bear witness to the programming of the theater and its importance in Lyon at the end of the 20th century, the beginnings of the recognition of certain artists, or even the arrival in France of new styles of dance. Finally in a few years, such a number of national and international companies set foot on the theater floor that a broad panorama of the history of dance is represented through these early archives. 

The videographer then developed a video library within the theater, produced the DVD Le tour du monde en 80 danses… But to reach the whole world, we had to think bigger: the Internet is the ideal tool. He then imagined in 2009 a beta version of Numeridanse.

Accompanied by the kindness and professionalism of Laurent Sebillotte, director of the CN D - Center national de la danse de Pantin media library, Charles Picq designs the first version of the platform. The world of performing arts and the world of documentation have come together to create a tool at the service of dance professionals for their audiences, a living online database.

The contents are developed by following the know-how in mediation by the image of the Maison de la Danse. Contextualization of works, playlists, educational paths, as in a theater, the spectator of Numeridanse will be accompanied in his discovery of an artist, a work, a current. 

Numeridanse was officially launched on January 24, 2011. Today, more than 4,000 video works are still available in free access, as its creator had wished.

It was the Webcastor agency, which at the time specialized in the distribution of online videos, that produced the first and then second version of the site. The Lyon agency Ladydinde developed the current version of the website; version launched in February 2018; and whom manages its maintenance.

Since the first day, the platform never worked alone. If the Maison de la Danse is its founding pillar, Numeridanse was born in its beta version in 2009 also thanks to the knowledge and technical expertise of our colleagues at the CN D media library, as well as the unwavering support of the BNP Paribas Foundation.  Since its official launch in 2011, the Ministry of Culture has supported the project and continues to support it today. But Numeridanse is above all, a community platform bringing together contributors who take part in the life of the site.

It It is after a study by Charles Picq and the producer Julie Charrier and the digitization plan launched by the Ministry of Culture in the 2010s, that issue of valuing the archives of the Maison de la Danse resonates with other structures: CCN, companies, theaters, video producers. The idea of giving Numeridanse a community operation was born for its launch in 2011, with 9 historical contributors: La Maison de la Danse and the CN D of course, but also the BNP Paribas Foundation, the CCN of Havre Haute Normandie headed by Hervé Robbe, the CCN of Grenoble under the direction of Jean-Claude Gallotta, the CCN of Montpellier under that of Mathilde Monnier, the CNDC of Angers directed by Robert Swinston, Chaillot-Théâtre national and 24images production.

Today, around fifty contributors bring Numeridanse to life. By publishing their videos, these contributors are participating in a large-scale dissemination phenomenon by enriching their content with information that is as important to describe the work itself as to make it sustainable in the history of dance.

Contributors participate in the development of the platform as much as in its financing. They are the ones who upload, index and publish their videos, who create tools to make them accessible and offer them to users.

It is not without pride that Numeridanse and his team perpetuate Charles Picq's project with passion and ambition, taking the steps he wanted to take from year to year. Today, Numeridanse has over a thousand choreographers whose work is featured in the platform's video library!

The video library gives access to all the videos available on the platform, in extract form or in their entirety. 

The excerpt refers to a work, is a quote from it and often its essence. It will allow an immersion in the heart of creation without revealing its entirety. Many complete works are also available. 

Numeridanse is another place of live performance, a place of shared referencing, but never substitutes for the real moment of indoor theater. The Internet will never replace the living scene!

Thanks to our development agency Ladydinde, our database is created in such a way as to set up for each work, the most precise indexing possible. The database works thanks to a qualified Dublin Core which allows the search engine to provide high quality results. 

Each submitted video is associated with the biography of its director, choreographer, detailed credits, keywords, and other dance-specific indexing tools. The Numeridanse team, its associated authors and each of the contributors invent multiple scenarios to tell the stories of the works thus listed; the Themes area is full of these tools that take the user's hand to tell him about the dance from all angles!

4 people in a small office of enthusiasts, full of ideas and overflowing with imagination.

First Alice, who after having collaborated in the development of the project with Charles Picq, took up the torch following the director's death and became responsible for the platform in 2012. 

Then Fabien, director of the Maison de la Danse and for Numeridanse, the inescapable head of the video. 

And then Olivier, the video speaker and mediator through the image of the Maison de la Danse and Numeridanse. No one knows Numeridanse's video collection as well as this expert.

These last three have been on the bridge for 10 years already! Always available and ready to take the whole Earth on board. 

In addition, Numeridanse has always operated with a small hand, which assists both the team in the conception of ideas, but also the contributors in their journeys through the platform. Today it is Margaux who plays this role.

The Numeridanse project has existed for 10 years with a single objective: to serve the world of dance; its actors, its audience, cultural and educational professionals. 

Considered today as the benchmark platform for the dance world, thousands of users connect every day from all over the world to discover this project, born in France, in Lyon. 

In 10 years, we want Numeridanse to be as representative as possible of the current choreographic sector, for the platform to help the dissemination and dissemination of works and artists, to be a digital stage in favor of a physical stage.