Born in 1947 in Romania, of parents of Greek and Russian origin, Gigi Caciuleanu began dancing at the age of four. Five  years later, he joined the National School of Choreography in Bucharest  for an eight-year cycle, during which he discovered contemporary dance  with Miriam Raducanu. This  emblematic figure of the new Romanian dance in charge of the "Art of  the Actor" classes introduces its students to an alternative approach to  dance. At  the end of the official teaching cycle, he was admitted to the  Bucharest National Opera, where he quickly gained soloists' roles after  having perfected the Bolshoi (Moscow). There he meets the soloist Ruxandra Racovitza, a faithful collaborator to come.
Taking  advantage of a flurry in the discipline of the regime that precedes the  hardening following the Spring of Prague (1968), Gigi Caciuleanu  performs in alternative clubs in Bucharest with Miriam Raducanu. It is in this period of underground excitement that he meets Dan Mastacan, another loyal collaborator.
He  began his career as a choreographer, obtaining in 1970 the first prize  at the Rencontres chorégraphiques de Varna with Mess around, a solo that  he never stopped dancing and which would be his "hit". He  won the Concours des Jeunes Chorégraphes de Cologne for two consecutive  years, in 1971 and 1972. At the invitation of Pina Bausch he joined the  Folkwang Ballet Essen (1972-1973) and composed a dozen pieces for  students of the Folkwang Hochschule. He then moved to France, where he was granted political asylum.
In  Nancy, Gigi Caciuleanu created the Contemporary Dance Studio in 1973  alongside Rosella Hightower before succeeding him at the direction of  the Ballet of the Grand Théâtre de Nancy the following year in which he  invited choreographers such as Dominique Bagouet, Jacques Garnier or Maguy Marin. The same year 1974, he won the first prize of the choreographic competition of Bagnolet with his solo Joie.
Named  director of the National Choreographic Center of Rennes created under  the name of Choreographic Theater of Rennes in 1978, he is called to  constitute a permanent company, faithful interpreter of his creations  played around the world (Asia, North and South America, Europe ). Figure  of the choreographic surge that France experienced in the 1980s, the  choreographer combines a technique close to virtuosity to an  unprecedented theatricality and humor.
Thanks  in 1993, he left the direction of the CCN Rennes after fifteen years of  presence in this city, giving way to Catherine Diverrès and Bernardo  Montet. He then founds his own structure sitting in Paris, subsidized by the Ministry of Culture.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, G. Caciuleanu made many trips to Romania, solicited from all sides by the Romanian scene. In  2001, he invested the theatrical writing with the play "Jungle X" whose  staging is hosted by a puppet theater of the city of Targu Mures  (Romania), an art that he considers the equal of the dance and theater. In  2007, he founded the Gigi Caciuleanu Romanian Dance Company in  Bucharest, which performs his creations "OuiBaDa" and "The Fanstastic  Symphony".
Invited  to choreograph for other companies, his international activity  gradually became dominant and, in 2001, Gigi Caciuleanu accepted the  artistic direction of the Ballet Nacional Chileno (Banch).
In  parallel, Gigi Caciuleanu publishes in 2002 an essay of "choreosophy"  entitled VVV: winds, volumes, vectors, first in Spanish then in Romanian  (2008) and French (2010) translation, a book in which he wishes to  convey his principles creators.
Distinguished  by numerous awards and decorations in France and abroad, Gigi  Caciuleanu was named Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 1984. His  creations are written in the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet, Lyon  Opera Ballet, Tanztheather Wuppertal-Pina Bausch, La Fenice, operas in Rome and Cardiff, the Bat-Dor Company (Israel), and the National Ballet of Chile.

Source : Centre national de la danse, Claire Delcroix (2013)

Karine Saporta is a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur and an Officier des Arts et des Lettres. She founded the Association des Centre Chorégraphiques Nationaux of which she is the first President. She was elected for the second time President of the Dance Commission and Vice-President of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD - Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) in 2004.

Right from the start, Karine Saporta defended at the highest level the artistic values responsible for her recognition and approval by the most eminent specialists as one of the leading figures of contemporary art today. 

She has been welcomed in all major dance venues, in France and abroad, with very many choreographies.

At the cutting edge of research into the body and the work of emotion in the dancer, she has revealed highly personal work methods.

Improvisation and technique but also reflection on dance themes and history form the foundations of Karine Saporta’s artistic and intellectual approach.

Her art is made up of baroque or dreamlike worlds, harbouring figures of flesh and wax, of giddiness of the senses and troubled hearts, of flamboyant pictorial images. 

From the Hispanic universe of the “Taureaux de Chimène” to the gothic images of “La princesse de Milan” or of the show “Le Spectre ou les Manèges du ciel”, not to mention the cinematographic form of certain productions such as “Le Bal du siècle” created at the Festival International du Film de Cannes in tribute to the centenary of cinema, or “Wild”, the choreographer shapes as much as a personal style the new forms of the performing arts.

Josef Nadj was born in 1957 in Kanjiza, a province of Vojvodina in the former Yugoslavia, in what is today Serbia. Beginning in childhood, he drew, practiced wrestling, accordeon, soccer and chess, intending a career in painting. Between the ages of 15 and 18, he studied at the fine arts high school of Novi Sad (the capital of Vojvodina), followed by 15 months of military service in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Afterwards, he left to study art history and music at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the University of Budapest, where he also began studying physical expression and acting.

In 1980, he left for Paris to continue his training with Marcel Marceau, Etienne Ducroux. Simultaneously he discovered modern dance, at the time in a period of swift expansion in France. He followed the teachings of Larri Leong (who combined dance, kimomichi and aidido) and Yves Cassati, also taking classes in tai-chi, butoh and contact improvisation (with Mark Tompkins), began himself to teach the movement arts in 1983 (in France and Hungary), and participated as a performer in works by Sidonie Rochon (Papier froissé, 1984), Mark Tompkins (Trahison Men, 1985), Catherine Diverrès (l’Arbitre des élégances, 1988) and François Verret (Illusion comique and La, commissioned by the GRCOP, 1986).

In 1986 he founded his company, Théâtre JEL – “jel” meaning “sign” in Hungarian – and created his first work, Canard Pékinois, presented in 1987 at the Théâtre de la Bastille and remounted the following year at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris.

Up to now, he is the author of about thirty performances.

In 1982, Josef Nadj completely abandoned drawing and painting to dedicate himself fully to dance, and would not begin showing his work again until fifteen years later. But in 1989 he began practicing photography, pursuing it without interruption to the present. Since 1996, his visual arts and graphic works, most often conceived in cycles or series – sculpture-installations, drawings, photos – have been regularly exhibited in galleries and theatres.

In 2006, Josef Nadj was Associated Artist for the 60th Festival of Avignon, presenting Asobu as the festival's opening performance in the Court of Honour of the Palais des Papes, as well as Paso doble, a performance created in collaboration with the painter Miquel Barcelo at the Celestins Church. In July 2010, he returned to present Les Corbeaux, a duet with Akosh zelevényi.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Chekhov, Valery Shadrin, director of the Chekhov International Theatre Festival and Artistic Director of the Year 2010 France-Russia, invited Josef Nadj for the creation of a show dedicated to the playwright, which was performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Josef Nadj was present at the Prague Quadrennial of 16 to 26 June 2011. TheQuadrennial held in Prague since 1967, is the most famous event in the world for performing arts. More than sixty countries attended this year. Josef Nadj was selected to participate in the project "Intersection" based on intimacy and performance. An ephemeral village was created, which consisted of boxes (“white cubes / black boxes") that stood for thirty world-renowned artists, each one represented by a different box. Since 1995, Josef Nadj has been the director of the Centre Chorégraphique National d’Orléans.

Source : Josef Nadj

En savoir plus : http://josefnadj.com/