From October 27 to November 9, 2018, the Erasmus Mundus EuroPhilosophie University Consortium and the Center for Philosophy of Law of the Catholic University of Louvain are organizing at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, as part of the research seminar “Thinking about decolonizations”, in collaboration with the Festival Danses et Continents Noirs of the James Carlès Choreographic Center, under the title “Corpus africana: Current philosophies and dances of Africa and its diasporas” an important international meeting aimed at bringing to the heart of European university research; in the field of Arts and Letters; knowledge and study of “Africana philosophy”, contemporary African and Afro-descendant choreographic knowledge.

Bernardo Montet is currently an associate artist with the SEcW project in Morlaix and artist-in-residence at the Théâtre Louis Aragon in Tremblay-en-France. He was director of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Tours from 2003 to the end of 2011. 

After a period spent at Maurice Béjart’s Mudra school in Brussels, he pursued his career with the choreographer Catherine Diverrès, and was joint director with her of the Centre Chorégraphique National de Rennes until 1998. From 1997 onwards, Bernardo Montet gathered around himself a team of loyal collaborators: Tal Beit Halachmi, Taoufiq Izeddiou, Dimitri Tsiapkinis and Marc Veh, with whom he composed a repertoire of some twenty works. Since Pain de Singe, a founding solo devised together with the filmmaker Téo Hernandez (1987), he has signed such works as, in 1997 Issê Timossé (with the complicity of Pierre Guyotat, author and reciter), in 1998 Beau Travail (in collaboration with Claire Denis), in 2001 Racine’s Bérénice (co-written with Frédéric Fisbach), and O.More (with Gnawa musicians) in 2002. 

In Tours, he created nine pieces: Parcours 2C (vobiscum) (with the plastic artist Gilles Touyard) in 2004, Coupédécalé with Eran Tzur for the musical composition (2005), Les batraciens s’en vont (2006) and Batracien, l’après-midi (2007), two works produced together with Lorella Abenavoli for the electroacoustic creation, Apertae (2008), Switch me off (co-written with Thomas Ferrand, 2009), God needs sacrifice (2010), Isao, a solo written for and in collaboration with the Malagasy choreographer Gaby Saranouffi, and Des Hommes, a group work in collaboration with the historian and critic Geneviève Vincent in December 2011. 

In July 2011, he was made an Officier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres. 

In 2012, Bernardo Montet accompanied Madeleine Louarn for the show Les Oiseaux (from Aristophanes’ Birds), while at the same time working on a duo entitled (Des)incarnat(s), with one of the actors of the Atelier Catalyse, on the notion of Vulnerable. 

All his pieces, buoyed up by demand and radicality, deal with subjects dear to his heart: colonialism, memory, identity, consciousness of the body, resistance, to name but a few. Each choreography springs up from the previous one to weave an image that is both similar and different: the bodies, in their poetical and political dimension, replay the world surrounding us. 

Bernardo Montet also develops unusual projects with children, such as ChOral (2013), Mom’arts (2011 and 2014), and in the urban space with Pas à Pas (2013), La Marche des Anges (2007), and Veiller par le geste (2008, 2010). 

More information: www.ciemawguerite.com

Since 2016, James Carlès has made the choice to make available to the public a selection of its videos.

Two methodologies transmitted by James Carlès and recognized internationally are part of the artistic and pedagogical project of the center :

- R.E.S.E.T. : Movement techniques with multiple applications for dancers and the person: form, health, expression, creativity, physicality are the assets of this method.

- James Carlès Dance Methodology : Choreographic technique for artists and thinkers. It allows dancers to develop their awareness and mastery of movement (flow), their gesture and their infinite technical and choreographic applications.

More than 2100 students have been trained in the span of 20 years, of which :

- 40% became artists/dancers

- 10% are working in cultural administration, in distribution or production

- 40% became teachers

- 10% are working in the body and well-being professions