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Born in Centralia, Washington on April 16, 1919, Cunningham began his  career as a modern dancer at the age of 20, dancing for six years with  the Martha Graham Dance Company. He presented his first recital in 1944,  and formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1953. The company was a  living canvas for his experimentation and the creation of his unusual  pieces.
 Over his long career he  choregraphed more than 150 pieces and more than 800 Events. Many dancers  studied and worked with Cunningham before founding their own companies,  among them Paul Taylor, Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs and Karole  Armitage ... He collaborated with many artists; his collaboration with  John Cage had the most influence on his practice.
 Together Cunningham and Cage  proposed a series of radical innovations in dance. The most famous and  controversial of these dealt with the relationship between dance and  music, able to co-exist in the same space and time but needing to be  conceived independently of each other.
 Cunningham continued to  experiment and innovate throughout his life, and he was one of the first  to use new technologies in his own art form. He choreographed and  taught almost until the day he died, July 26, 2009, and received many  awards and accolades. Cunningham’s life and work have inspired the  publication of four books and three important exhibitions; several of  his pieces have been presented by other prestigious companies such as  American Ballet Theatre, the Ballet de Lorraine, the New York City  Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, the Rambert Dance Company in London and  the White Oak Dance Project.

Source: CCN-Ballet de Lorraine

More information: www.mercecunningham.org

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

Born in Catania, Maria Donata D'Urso studied architecture and contemporary dance in Rome. She studied at Merce Cunningham Studio and the Nikolais-Murray Louis Dance Company.

Since 1988 she lives in Paris where she follows a training in Chinese energy and works among others with Marco Berrettini, Christian Rizzo, Hubert Colas, Paco Decina, Jean Gaudin, Francesca Lattuada, Arnold Pasquier, Wolf Ka. In 1999, she created Pezzo 0, outdoor installation, inspired by the meeting with Laurent Goldring.

In 2004, she formed the structure, DisOrienta, to develop her personal projects: minimalist solos, where the usual spatial components are interrogated and reinvented. His attention is focused on the limit places, absence / presence, inside / outside and the ambiguous surfaces, those of the skin, those  touched by the look.

She then begins a poetic and composite project, which she calls the Triptych of the skin. After Pezzo 0 (due) will follow Private Collection and its translucent table, Lapsus is its circular scenography. His latest creation Strata.2 extends this enigmatic journey into the world of bodies.

Maria Donata D'Urso is a laureate at Villa Kujoyama, Kyoto, Japan in 2012.

Source : Disorienta's website

More information : disorienta.org

Régine Chopinot, born in 1952 in Fort-de-l'Eau (today known as Bordj El Kiffan), in Algeria, was attracted to choreographic art from early childhood. After studying classical dance, she discovered contemporary dance with Marie Zighera in 1974. She moved to Lyon where she founded her first company in 1978, the Compagnie du Grèbe, which included dancers, actors and musicians. Here, she created her first choreographies. Three years later, she was awarded second prize in the Concours chorégraphique international de Bagnolet (Bagnolet International Choreographic Contest) for “Halley's Comet” (1981), later known as “Appel d'air”. Her next pieces of work “Délices” (Delights) and “Via”, introduced other media including the cinema to the world of dance. In 1983 with “Délices”, Régine Chopinot began her longstanding partnership with the fashion designer, Jean Paul Gaultier, which would characterize the period, which included works such as “Le Défilé” (The Fashion show) (1985), “K.O.K.” (1988), “ANA” (1990), “Saint Georges” (1991) and “Façade” (1993). In 1986, Régine Chopinot was appointed director of the Centre chorégraphique national de Poitou-Charentes (Poitou-Charentes National Choreography Centre) in La Rochelle (where she succeeded Jacques Garnier and Brigitte Lefèvre's Théâtre du Silence), which went on to become the Ballet Atlantique-Régine Chopinot (BARC), in 1993. Régine Chopinot made a myriad of artistic encounters: from visual artists like Andy Goldsworthy, Jean Le Gac and Jean Michel Bruyère, to musicians such as Tôn-Thât Tiêt and Bernard Lubat.

At the beginning of the 90s, she moved away from – according to her own expression – “ultra-light spaces” in which, at a young age, she had become acknowledged, in particular through her partnership with Jean Paul Gaultier. She then became fascinated with experimenting on confronting contemporary dance with natural elements and rhythms and on testing age-old, complex body sciences and practices, such as yoga. In 1999, as part of “associate artists”, Régine Chopinot invited three figures from the world of contemporary dance to partner with her for three years on her artistic project: Françoise Dupuy, Dominique Dupuy and Sophie Lessard joined the BARC's troupe of permanent dancers and consultants-researchers, as performers, pedagogues and choreographers.

In 2002, she initiated the “triptyque de la Fin des Temps” (Triptych of the End of Time), a long questioning of choreographic writing and creation subsequent to her creation of a voluntary state of crisis of general notions of time, of memory and of construction. “Chair-obscur”, her first chapter, focused on erasing the past, the memory, whilst “WHA” was based on the disappearance of the future. “O.C.C.C.” dealt with the “time that's left”, with what is left to be done, with what can still be done, in that simple, yet essential spot called performance. In 2008, “Cornucopiae”, the last work created within the Institution, concluded the end of a form of performance and opened the doors to another approach to sensorial perception.

Concurrently to her choreographic work, Régine Chopinot worked, as a performer, with other artists that she was close to: Alain Buffard (“Wall dancin' - Wall fuckin'”, 2003; “Mauvais Genre”, 2004), Steven Cohen (“I wouldn't be seen dead in that!”, 2003). In addition, she trained and directed Vietnamese dancers as part of a partnership with the Vietnam Higher School of Dance and the Hanoi Ballet-Opera (“Anh Mat”, 2002; “Giap Than”, 2004). In 2008, the choreographer left the CCN in La Rochelle and created the Cornucopiae - the independent dance Company, a new structure that would, henceforth, harbour creation and repertoire, all the works of Régine Chopinot. In 2010, she chose to live and work in Toulon, by its port.

Since 2009, Régine Chopinot has been venturing, questioning and intensifying her quest for the body in movement linked to the strength of the spoken word, through cultures organized by and on oral transmission, in New Caledonia, New Zealand and Japan. These last three years have been punctuated by a myriad of artistic creations: choreographies and films resulting from artistic In Situ experiences were created as part of the South Pacific Project. A privileged relationship initiated in 2009 with the Du Wetr Group (Drehu/Lifou) bore its fruits with the creation of “Very Wetr!”at the Avignon Festival in July 2012 and went on to be reproduced at the Centre national de la danse (National Centre for Dance) in February 2013.

More information

cornucopiae.net

Last update : March 2012

Wilkie Branson is an interdisciplinary dance artist and film maker. Self taught in both dance and film, which form the main focus of his work, the roots of his practice lie in BBoying. Wilkie’s dance style has developed into a unique fusion, with expression, accessibility and integrity at it’s heart. He received the Arts Foundation Choreographic Fellowship in 2012 and was most recently the recipient of several awards for his latest dance animation, Little Dreams. Wilkie is also a New Wave Associate Artist at Sadler's Wells. Over the past 12 months Wilkie has toured works both nationally in the UK and internationally in Europe and North America as a choreographer, movement director and film maker. He is currently in the early development stages for a new work with which he seeks to push further the boundaries between cinematic art forms and live movement based works.

Wilkie is currently begining work on a new Project for Sadler's Wells, « TOM », an integrated dance for camera installation that will be presented as a projection mapped 3D visual and sound experience. The project will bring together cutting edge technology in film, animation, projection mapping and sound design to create an immersive choreographic world for the protagonist to inhabit and the audience to be absorbed within.

Source: Wilkie Branson 's website

More information: wilkiebranson.net