Boris Charmatz FR

Dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz (1973) was a table tennis player before studying dance at the École de Danse in Paris and continuing his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon. In 1992, he founded Association Edna, together with Dimitri Chamblas. In 1993, they made their debut with the duet À bras-le-corps. From 1997, Charmatz started to develop various projects within the Association Edna, ranging from improvisational projects and installations to films, exhibitions and excursions. In 2008, he was appointed artistic director of the CCNRB (Centre Chorégraphique National de Rennes et de Bretagne), which he transformed into a Museum of Dance a year later. One of the projects he set up at the museum was expo zéro, an exhibition without any objects: no photographs, sculptures, installations or videos; only artists with their bodies, gestures, movements and dance.

In all of his works, Boris Charmatz has always concentrated on the body. Even in works in which this very feature is denied and hidden, the quality and the presence of a human body in relation to dance is always central. Charmatz always maintains a strict framework within which movement can be developed. These structures serve to produce new forms of dance, to share them and reflect on them. A good example of this approach is 50 years of dance, his fast-moving, kaleidoscopic exploration of dance grandmaster Merce Cunningham's oeuvre. Associate artist of the 2011 Festival d'Avignon, Boris Charmatz was invited at MoMA (New York) in 2013 and at Tate Modern (London) in 2012 and 2015.

He is also the co-author of ‘undertraining / On A Contemporary Dance’ written with Isabelle Launay, ‘Je suis une école’ and ‘Emails 2009-2010’ cosigned with Jérôme Bel. In recent works, he raised some uncomfortable questions about the vulnerability of children and the complex relation between man and machine, in enfant, a piece performed by 26 children, 9 adults, 1 musician and 3 machines. In his latest work manger, Charmatz explores the choreographic possibilities of one of the most basic human actions: eating. The performance premiered in 2014 at the Ruhrtriennale in Bochum.