The origin of Lou lies in the encounter between the  choreographer Mickaël Phelippeau, whose bi-portraits have gradually  turned his choreographic project into a tool for studying  intersubjectivity, and Béatrice Massin, whose Fêtes Galantes promotes  the renaissance of baroque dance. Lou is Lou Cantor, a young  performer, trained by Béatrice Massin since her childhood. Consistent  with his approach favouring the individual, dialogue and evolving  practices, Mickaël Phelippeau conceived this portrait as a levelling: a  blank page, allowing for a comprehension of Lou Cantor’s apprenticeship  in dance, alongside the trajectory leading from the birth of a gesture  to its being put into action. In this way, each element in space – the  score, steps, music, costumes –put back together a piece of the enigma:  what links an individual with their practice? With Lou, the pleasure of  precisely placing each gesture – the position of the feet, the legs,  arms and hands – emphasises the basic dimension which is at play: with  different versions of Aria della Folia, space and motion become  structured, sketching out in the background the story of a body being  constructed by baroque dance, from childhood to adulthood.

Source: programme of the CN D

After training in visual arts and dance, Mickaël Phelippeau worked with many choreographers (including Mathilde Monnier, Alain Buffard and Daniel Larrieu), and from 2001 to 2008, with Clubdes5, a collective of dancers and performers. Since 2003, he has focussed mainly on his research on the step Bi-portrait, prétexte à la rencontre (pretext for the meeting). He created the choreographic pieces bi-portrait Jean-Yves (2008) and bi-portrait Yves C. (2009), Round Round Round (2010), Numéro d'objet (2011), Sueños and Chorus (2012).

Since 2010, Mickaël Phelippeau has been director artistic of À domicile residence in Guissény and from, 2011 to 2014, is an associate artist with the Quartz Scène nationale de Brest. From September 2012, he has also been an associate artist with the Théâtre de Brétigny.

Further information: Association bi-p

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.).