Alwin Nikolaïs was born in 1910 in Southington, Connecticut. He studied piano at an early age and began his performing career as an organist accompanying silent films. As a young artist he gained skills in scenic design, acting, puppetry and music composition. It was after attending a performance by the illustrious German dancer Mary Wigman that he was inspired to study dance. He received his early dance training at Bennington College from the great figures of the modern dance world: Hanya Holm, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Louis Horst, and others. In 1940, in collaboration with Truda Kaschmann, his first modern dance teacher Mr. Nikolais received a commission to create « Eight Column Line », his first ballet.  In 1948, Mr. Nikolais was appointed director of the Henry Street Playhouse, where he formed the Playhouse Dance Company, later renamed and known as the Nikolais Dance Theatre. It was at Henry Street that Mr. Nikolais began to develop his own world of abstract dance theatre, portraying man as part of a total environment. His unique choreographic works placed him in a realm previously untouched by other choreographers. Mr. Nikolais redefined dance, as “the art of motion which, left on its own merits, becomes the message as well as the medium.“

While developing his choreography, Mr. Nikolais' lifelong interest in music led him to create his own scores. Choreographer, composer, scenic and costume designer, has blended his many talents into a single aesthetic force. In a career that has spanned five decades, he has left his imprint on every theatrical medium, from Broadway to television. Whenever there is something new, his hand is evident. His lighting wonders, his sound scores, his choreography, and his costumes have influenced the contemporary stage and a generation of choreographers. Mr. Nikolais is the creator of the internationally acclaimed Nikolais Dance Theater and the genius responsible for dozens of visual masterpieces. As a uniquely original exponent of American contemporary dance he toured throughout Europe and subsequent tours to South America and the Far East. Mr. Nikolais is renowned as a master teacher, and his pedagogy is taught in schools and universities throughout the world. He passed away May 8, 1993 and is buried in Pere La Chaisse cemetery in Paris.

Source: Nikolais/Louis Foundation for dance Inc.

More information: nikolaislouis.org

Aurélien Bory was born in Colmar in 1972. His studies in physics in Strasbourg led him to the field of architectural acoustics.  He then ended his scientific curriculum in 1995.  He settled in Toulouse where he joined the creative studio at the Lido, the Circus Arts Centre. In 1998, he played in Theatre Tattoo's "L'Odyssée" directed by Mladen Materic.  In 2000 he founded Compagnie 111 with actor Olivier Alenda.  He then conceived and began the six-year-long space trilogy project, in collaboration with Phil Soltanoff, including "IJK", "Plan B" and "Plus ou moins l'infini" (More or less, Infinity).
In 2003 he directed Pierre Rigal in his first solo creation Erection, the stem of their ungoing collaboration, which also originated their second work together: Arrêts de Jeu premiered in 2006. Merging various other fields, he created "Taoub" in 2004 in Tangier with twelve moroccan acrobats, this very show will launch the international career of the Groupe acrobatique de Tanger (Tangier Acrobatic Group).  In 2008 Aurélien was the recipient of the "Créateur sans frontières" (Creator without borders)/ Radio France trophy for his international creations, notably "Les sept planches de la ruse" (The seven boards of skill) created in China in 2007 with performers from Dalian. In 2008 and 2009, he conceived two creations: "Questcequetudeviens?", a portrait of a woman, and "Sans Objet", a piece for an industrial robot. His creations include different artistic fields : theatre, circus, dance, visual arts, music...  His genre-crossing approach is inscribed within the question of space and is explored through his distinctive scenography. In 2016, he created "ESPÆCE" based on the French writer Georges Perec 's work, at the Festival d'Avignon (France).

Source: Company 111 's website ; Plan Bey 's press file

More information : cie111.com

A major figure on the hip-hop scene since the early 1990s, Merzouki works at the crossroads of many different disciplines: he adds circus, martial arts, fine arts, video and live music to his exploration of hip-hop dance. Without losing sight of the roots of hip-hop movement – of its social and geographical origins – this multidisciplinary approach opens new horizons and reveals original outlooks. Since 1996, 30 creations have been performed in 700 cities and 65 countries, with more than 3,000 performances given for 1.7 million people. Since 2009, Merzouki is director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne, where he created the festival Kalypso, a Parisian twin of his festival Karavel in the region of Lyon. In 2016, he is also appointed artistic director of Pôle en Scènes in Bron.

More information : http://ccncreteil.com/

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s debut as a choreographer was in 1999 with Andrew Wale’s contemporary musical Anonymous Society. Since then, he has made more than 20 fully-fledged choreographic pieces and picked up a slew of prestigious awards.

In 2008, Sadler’s Wells named him as an Associate Artist, and since 2010 he has been artistic director of the Festival Equilibrio in Rome. He also has been appointed as the new artistic director of the Royal Ballet Flanders and will take up the post on 1 September 2015.

While Cherkaoui’s initial pieces ("Rien de Rien", "Foi", "Tempus Fugit") were made as a core member of the Belgian collective les ballets C de la B, he also made work that both expanded and consolidated his artist vision: "Ook" (2000) with Nienke Reehorst and the mentally disabled actors of Theater Stap, "D’avant" (2002) with Damien Jalet and dancer-singers of the Sasha Waltz & Guests company and zero degrees (2005) with Akram Khan. Between 2006-2009, during his stint as associate artist at Het Toneelhuis in Antwerp, he extended his exploration of the equations between self and otherness through "Sutra" (2008), his dialogue with the warrior monks of the Shaolin Temple and "Dunas" (2009) alongside flamenco bailaora, Maria Pagés, and "Play" (2010) with kutchipudi danseuse Shantala Shivalingappa.

In 2010, with the founding of his company Eastman (in residence at deSingel International Artcampus) in Antwerp, Cherkaoui began a new phase in his trajectory, marked by the multiple-award-winning Babel, co-choreographed with Damien Jalet and designed by Antony Gormley. "TeZukA" (2011) – his homage to Osamu Tezuka, the founding father of modern manga – and "Puz/zle" (2012) followed. 2013 saw the premiere of 4D and "生长genesis" (Eastman), "Boléro" (co-created with Damien Jalet and Marina Abramovic, for the Ballet of the Opera of Paris) and "M¡longa" (for Sadler’s Wells).

He continues to work with a variety of theatres, opera houses and ballet companies from the world (Dutch National Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, GöteborgsOperan Danskompani, Bunkamura Theatre Cocoon in Tokyo, Stuttgart Ballet. Los Angeles Dance Company). Cherkaoui also received much international acclaim for his choreography in Joe Wright’s feature film Anna Karenina (2012). Cherkaoui directed and choreographed Shell Shock (2014), an opera for La Monnaie (Brussels) with music by Nicholas Lens and text by Nick Cave.

In 2015, Cherkaoui directed his first full-length theatre production Pluto based on the award-winning manga series by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki at Bunkamura in Tokyo, bringing 

the beloved manga character Astro Boy to life on stage, and was movement director for Lyndsey Turner's Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch at the Barbican Centre in London. He also made a trio Harbor Me, and choreographed a new Firebird for Stuttgart Ballet. In the same year, Cherkaoui created a new production Fractus V for his company Eastman, in which he also performs, and made his first work for the Royal Ballet of Flanders Fall. 

Cherkaoui assumed the role of artistic director at the Royal Ballet of Flanders in 2015. He is also associate artist at Sadler’s Wells, London, guest artistic director of the National Youth Dance Company, as well as dance director of Festival Equilibrio in Rome.

Source: Eastman⎜Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui

More information : east-man.be

Born in 1962 in Coutances (Normandy, France), Dominique Hervieu has had a voracious appetite for every form of movement since she was six years old. After her first love, gymnastics, she elected dance as the new object of her passion : classical dance, at first, which she practised for a dozen years, mainly with Michèle Latini; and then contemporary dance, with Peter Goss, Alwin Nicolais and Hervé Diasnas.

In 1981, she met José Montalvo and with him developed an original gestural language – fluid, rapid and precise – that would impart a singular style to their works. In 1988, their close artistic bond yielded Compagnie Montalvo-Hervieu, which performs at the leading venues in France and beyond. Ten years and five new pieces later, the duo were appointed to head the Centre Chorégraphique National de Créteil et du Val-de- Marne. Since 2000, Dominique Hervieu has co- devised all the pieces by Compagnie Montalvo- Hervieu, which ranks among the most popular and recognised contemporary-dance companies in France and abroad.

In 2000, they specially created Variation au Paradis for the opening ceremony of the Cannes International Film Festival. That year, Dominique Hervieu became artistic adviser to the Théâtre National de Chaillot and was appointed director of the venue’s youth programme. She conducted original arts-education actions, drawing on connections between dance works and artistic practices on the one hand, and on those between the arts on the other hand, in partnership with the Musée du Louvre and several other Paris institutions. She notably conceived a choreographic trail at the Louvre in 2004, attracting 5,000 spectators.

In 2001 she created "Mosaïque... Danse(s) d’une ville", a piece for 180 amateur dancers aged 15 to 85: a multicultural portrait in dance of the town of Créteil, which involved residents in the creative process. In 2002 and 2003 she devised two pieces on her own: "Intervallo Brio" at the Mettre en scène festival, a work for two virtuoso dancers, a grandfather and two little girls; and "Le Corbeau et le renard", a dance version of La Fontaine’s fable.

In 2006 she created "La Bossa Fataka" de Rameau with José Montalvo. With Montalvo she also choreographed and directed two operas : "Les Paladins", under the musical direction of William Christie of Les Arts Florissants, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (2004); and George Gershwin’s "Porgy and Bess" at the Opéra National de Lyon (2008).
Also in 2006, Dominique Hervieu created L’artde la rencontre - Cartes postales chorégraphiques for " Les Francophonies ! " festival, in conjunction with four choreographers from the Francophone world. These collaborations gave rise to 12 filmed duos and provided the material for a documentary for Arte. In June 2008, Hervieu was appointed director of the Théâtre National de Chaillot. The duo’s most recent work, "Orphée", was staged in 2010. In July that year she initiated Imaginez Maintenant, a national event to promote young artists, in conjunction with France’s High Commissioner for Youth and its Council for Artistic Creation.  In July 2011, she succeeded Guy Darmet as general manager of La Maison de la Danse and as artistic director of the Lyon Dance Biennial.

Since 2014, Dominique Hervieu has been developing the international part of the Lyon Dance Biennial parade by inviting groups of major European cities (Turin and Barcelona). In 2018, she will be the Artistic Director of the Triennial of Yokohama Dance, Dance, Dance.

Source: Maison de la Danse

Born in 1978, he graduated from the Conservatoire National de Région de Lyon, then from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon. He improved his training with Odile Duboc, Fabrice Ramalingom, Hélène Cathala, Betty Jones etc.

He joined the Skanes Dance Theatre in Sweden in 1999. He danced in "Meublé Sommairement" (2000) and in "Matière Première" (2002), produced by the association Les Carnets Bagouets; in "Les allées et Venues "(2000) and "Dehors" (2002), produced by La Veilleuse/Christine Jouve Co. He danced with Bernard Glandier in "Le Roi des Bons", Thomas Lebrun in "On prendra bien le temps d’y être", in 2001, "La Trêve(s)" in 2004, "What you want" in 2006 and in "Switch" (2007).

He founded the Arcosm Co in 2000 with Camille Rocailleux and created "Echoa" November 2001, followed by "Lisa" (2006), "La Mécanique des Anges" (2009), "Traverse" (2011), "Solonely" (2012), "Bounce!" (2013), Sublime (2015) & Subliminal (2016). He took part in the choreography of the performance Carnets de notes for the Odysee Ensemble (2003). He choreographed the solo for the State Diploma with Sylvie Giron. Two years later, he was invited by the association Les Carnets Bagouet to stage again for Les Ballets de Nancy another play of their repertoire: Les petites pièces de Berlin. The Ensemble Odyssée Co also called him to stage their new show Le concert interdit.

He wrote a feature film scenario entitled « La boîte en Fer Rouge » with Bertrand Guerry. In 2009, he worked with his brother on the scenario of the feature film « Back Home ». His choreographic experience can be seen through the sharp vision of the destruction of main character’s body.

Sources: Arcosm Co 's website

More information

compagniearcosm.fr

Born in 1977, Camille Rocailleux graduated from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon and won the First prize.

He co-founded the ARCOSM company with Thomas Guerry in 2000. This step marked the begining of a important artistic work and the creation of 4 dancing and musical play: "Echoa" (2001), "Lisa" (2007), "La Mecanique des Anges" (2009) "Traverse" (2010) "Solonely" (2012), "Bounce!" (2013), "Sublime" (2015).

Camille Rocailleux contributes to various artistes and bands: National Symphonic Orchestras of Lyon and Toulouse, The Opéra National de Lyon, The Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg (Chamber Music order for « Dance010 ») The actor and storyteller Yannick Jaulin (composition of musics and shows : "J’ai pas fermé l’œil de la nuit", "Menteur", "Terrien", "Le dodo", "Conteur? Conteur!" …), the film-makers Jean-Pierre Lledo, Gilles Porte, Gaël Morel (original soundtracks of: "Le Clan", "New Wave", "Notre Paradis"), the singer Daphnée (Prix Constantin 2007), production of her album "L’Émeraude", artistic contribution with Benjamin Biolay and the pianist Gonzales, contribution to the album "Carmin", the singer Camille (Body-percussionnist and choir singer ring the wordlwide tour – Music Hole Tour), the beat boxers Ezra and L.O.S. (Bionicologists project), the Jérôme Savary company (solo of Mona Heftre in the play "Albertine") and stage directors Laurent Brethome (Projet « H »), Dominique Lardenois, Yves Beaunesne ("Pionniers à Ingolstadt", "L’Annonce faite à Marie").

In 2013, he founds his own company of music, E.V.E.R. and creates "Obstinés!" (2013) and "Nous" (2016).

Source : The Arcosm company 's website

More information

compagniearcosm.fr