Choreography Cindy Van Acker 

In 2005, Tamara Bacci revisited a solo originally choreographed and danced by Cindy Van Acker. This first encounter was the start of an intense collaboration between the two women, and the duo Drift was the onstage realisation of this close relationship. The word 'drift' in English also means 'anger', 'ardour' or 'urge' in Dutch. The piece navigates between a composition driven by inner strength and one where movements are imposed on the body in a sort of organised chaos close to controlled skid.
In French, 'drift' is a geological term for material swept along by glaciers, an idea used for the set design, with its cold yet soft lighting, as an echo to the founding duality of this choreography score.

More information

Website of the company

Rencontres chorégraphiques de Seine-Saint-Denis

Updating: July 2014 

By her  choreographic writing, combining esthetical sobriety, minimalist  movement, precise composition and the use of electronic sounds, Cindy  Van Acker examines with a quasi scientific meticulousness the relations  between the body and the spirit, sound and rhythm, and creates pieces  crossing the borders of dance, performance and visual arts.

Trained in classical ballet, Cindy Van Acker first danced in the Flanders Royal Ballet in Belgium  and at the Geneva’s Grand Theatre before emerging in the contemporary  dancescene in Geneva. She creates her own pieces since 1994 and founds  the Cie Greffe in 2002 at the occasion of the creation of Corps 00:00 that obtained international recognition. In 2003, Van Acker creates two other solos, Fractie and Balk 00:49.

In 2005 she signs her first group piece for eight dancers, Pneuma 02:05. The same year, the Italian director Romeo Castellucci invites Van Acker to present Corps 00:00  at the Venice Biennale. This first meeting leads to an artistic  collaboration with Castellucci who suggests her to create the  choreographic part for his creation of Dante’s Inferno (2008 edition of the Avignon Festival). Under his direction, she also signs the choreographic part of the operas Parsifal, created at De Munt in January 2011, and Moise und Aron, set up at Opéra Bastille in October 2015.

In 2006 she creates Puits at the Théâtre du Galpon in Geneva, a collaboration with Vincent Barras and Jacques Demierre, performed by Perrine Valli.

Invited by Michèle  Pralong and Maya Boesch during the first year of their  co-directorship of the Théâtre du Grü in Geneva, Cindy presents a trio  of women, Kernel. Created in 2007, Kernel  provides an opportunity for a first and stimulating collaboration with  the Finnish composer Mika Vainio of the Pan Sonic group. He created and  played live the music for the performance. This experience continues in  2008 with Lanx at the Electron Festival and in 2009 for the creation of the solos Nixe and Obtus for the Bâtie-Festival de Genève. Obvie, Antre and Nodal  complete this series of six solos and are the source of as many films  realized by Orsola Valenti. The choreographer presents four of these  solos: Obvie, Lanx, Nixe and Obtus at the Festival d’Avignon in 2010.

With Monoloog in 2010, she renewed her collaboration with the Electron Festival and Mika Vainio.

In October 2011 she creates Diffraction, piece for six dancers and a light-machine, 9-tubes designed by Victor Roy. In October 2013 Diffraction  receives one of the four Swiss awards of dance in the category «  Création actuelle », designated by l’Office Fédéral de la Culture.

In January 2012 she conceives with Victor Roy the project Score Conductor,  an exhibition and materialisation in visual objects of the  choreographic scores that Cindy has written since 2003. At this occasion  and on the initiative of Michèle Pralong, a book by the name of Partituurstructuur is edited by Héros-Limite.

In 2013 she creates Magnitude for 22 dancers of the Ballet Junior directed by Sean Wood and Patrice Delay as well as Liniaal  for the Cie Virevolte directed by Manon Hotte in Geneva. Then, in the  same year, Helder is premiered on la Belle Scène de Saint Denis on the  proposition by Myriam Gourfink in the context of her residence at the  Forum Blanc-Mesnil. And, last, in November 2013, she signs Drift, a duo performed by Tamara Bacci and herself.

In July 2014, Cindy Van  Acker created Anechoic during Expeditie Dansand on the beach Ostende  for 53 danseurs de P.A.R.T.S. The play is resumed in June 2015 with 40  dancers of the Ballet Junior 13 and CFC-dance in Geneva. 

ION,  her last work created in March 2015 at Théâtre Vidy Lausanne, marks her  return to the solo form, its possibility of radical experiments and the  looking for extreme plasticity.

Cindy Van Acker has  been responsible for the physical formation at the Haute Ecole de  Théâtre, la Manufacture, in Lausanne from 2006 till 2010.

Her  professional path is marked by her collaborations with Myriam Gourfink,  Romeo Castellucci, Victor Roy and by the collaborators of the Cie  Greffe.

Source : Greffe company

More information : www.ciegreffe.org

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.).