Choreographer training for young audiences
Training in the design and interpretation of choreographic performances for young audiences. This training module aims to provide tools for understanding and designing choreographic performances for young audiences.
Download the brochure Choreographer Training for Young Audiences
Assimilate the artistic and creative challenges of stage writing, dramaturgy or choreography and its interpretation, likely to affect young audiences.
To be able to propose forms that are accessible to young audiences.
To acquire the specific approaches to creation for young audiences today (production and distribution methods, economics, etc.)
Professional profile of the trainees :
Professional choreographers with two years of experience Choreographic performers with two years of experience
Pre-requisites and professional experience of the trainees :
2 years of professional experience
The main objectives of this Choreography for Young Audiences course are :
To assimilate the artistic and creative stakes of a choreographic writing and its interpretation likely to touch children and young audiences.
To be able to propose short forms accessible to children and young audiences - to present this short form to a group of children at one or two different times.
To acquire the specific approaches to creation aimed at young audiences in the performing arts today (modes of production and distribution, economics, etc.)
Educational programme :
For several years now, the choreographic milieu has joined the other performing arts in the creative impulse for young audiences. Choreographic artists are now taking part in the fantastic development of creation for young people by bringing new proposals, new languages and arguments. True to its origins, dance knows how to complement theatrical, musical or scenographic works. Also, and this is now frequent, artists bring reflections and works in their own right, in which dance is the main actor.
This practice is still recent, and even unheard of for some dancers and choreographers. It raises many artistic and production-related questions.
What is considered a work for young audiences? What languages are at stake? What place should be given to narrative and abstraction? What artistic collaborations are relevant? What are the modes of production, the distribution networks and the economy of creation for young audiences?
The PNSD Rosella Hightower International Dance Centre is offering a training course to address all these questions in collaboration with active professionals, artists, programme managers and philosophers.
The work will alternate between theoretical notions and a large part of practical application directed by the different creators. Theoretical and reflective insights will be provided by a teacher-researcher in the field of creation for young audiences. The point of view of a presenter, programming shows for young audiences, will allow us to deal with the conditions of creation and distribution of these shows aimed at young audiences.
We will approach the creation of shows for young audiences as a whole by evoking its history, the major stages, the major works as well as the questions surrounding production and distribution. The same framework of questions will be submitted to each creator who will answer them in the light of his or her personal and singular experience of creation for young audiences.
The last period will be devoted to the presentation of an individual creative project. The presentation can take any form the trainee wishes (model, oral presentation, staging, etc.).
During each session, a show for young audiences will be proposed to the trainees and could be the basis for a shared observation and analysis in order to identify what could be the parameters of the "show for young audiences", through a particular attention to certain aspects (a grid will be transmitted).
44h (8 days : 4 modules of 2 days and 11 hours)
Timetable and organisation of the training :
Module 1 - 8 and 9 October 2022
Saturday 8 October 10:00-13:00 and 14:00-17:00
Sunday 9 October 9:30-13:30 and 14:00-15:30
PNSD Rosella Hightower Studios
Trainer: Olivier Le Tellier
Show to see: Un furieux désir de bonheur, Olivier Le Tellier, Saturday 7 October 2022, Théâtre Croisette
Born in 1972, Olivier Letellier trained at the Jacques Lecoq International School before creating the Théâtre du Phare company in Champigny-sur-Marne and becoming an associate artist at the Théâtre National de Chaillot, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, the Grand T in Nantes, the Filature - Scène nationale de Mulhouse and the Théâtre de la Manufacture - centre dramatique national de Nancy-Lorraine. In addition to his work as a director, he teaches theatre courses (ERACM) as well as circus apprentices (Académie Fratellini). He regularly collaborates with contemporary authors such as Rodrigue Norman, Daniel Danis and Stéphane Jaubertie. He initiated the "stage writing for young audiences" project with authors Catherine Verlaguet, Magali Mougel and Sylvain Levey. "Un Furieux désir de bonheur", a creation for 7 performers, mixes narrative theatre, dance and circus.
In 2016, he created the opera "Kalila wa Dimna", by Moneim Adwan, a commission from the Festival d'art lyrique d'Aix-en-Provence. He adapted his show "Oh Boy!" in New York. The Orchestre de Paris commissioned him to stage Hans Krassá's Brundibar for its Children's Choir at the Philharmonie in May 2019. He has been appointed director of the Tréteaux de France, a national drama centre, where he will take up his post on 1 July 2022, succeeding Robin Renucci.
With his company, the Théâtre du Phare, Olivier Le Tellier tells stories "through text, the body in movement and everyday objects as symbols. By mixing this hybrid language with other modes of expression - circus, dance, sound creation, visual arts - we want to create images that are larger than words.
Pedagogical objectives of the module
To discover the motivations and challenges of creating for young audiences by a particular director
To understand the links between story writing and movement
Understand the reasons for a production that calls on choreography, why and how
Module 2 - 19 and 20 November 2022
Saturday 19 November 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm
Sunday 20 November 9.30am-1.30pm and 2pm-3.30pm
PNSD Rosella Hightower Studios
Trainer: Michel Kelemenis
Show to see: 15-18 November Légende (from 5 years old), Michel Kelemenis, Théâtre de la Licorne
French dancer and choreographer Michel Kelemenis was born in 1960 and began dancing in Marseille at the age of 17. In 1983, he became a performer at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier with Dominique Bagouet and wrote his first choreographies, including Aventure coloniale with Angelin Preljocaj in 1984. He was awarded the Villa Médicis Hors-les-Murs in 1987 and founded Kelemenis&cie the same year.
In 1991, he was awarded the Leonardo da Vinci Scholarship and the Japanese Uchida Shogakukin Fund, and the following year he was awarded the Beaumarchais Prize for the creation of Cités citées. His career has been distinguished: he was named Chevalier in the National Order of Merit in 2007 and promoted to Officier des Arts et des Lettres in 2013. His numerous pieces (more than 60, including some 40 for his company) are presented throughout the world. A lover of movement and dancers, of those exceptional moments when the gesture tips over into the role, Michel Kelemenis articulates his creations around the search for a balance between abstraction and figuration.
Some of his most important works are The solos Faune Fomitch (1988), Clin de lune (1993) & Kiki la rose (1998), Vaste ciel (1990), Image & Anthère (1994), Le Paradoxe de la femme-poisson (1998), 3 poèmes inédits (2001), Besame mucho (2005), the riptych Aléa, Viiiiite, Disgrâce (2010), Siwa (2013)
Long described as an abstract sensualist, the choreographer gives music an essential place, particularly by commissioning original works. His work sometimes deals with themes linked to current events (love in times of AIDS, terrorist violence, environmental upheaval, etc.). He is also a set designer for many of his pieces.
Having explored dance as a language, the choreographer is interested in the eloquence of gesture and approaches narrative, notably through La Barbe bleue in 2015 or shows aimed at children, young people and families: L'Amoureuse de Monsieur Muscle (2008), Henriette & Matisse (2010), Rock & Goal (2016) and LEGEND, the company's 2021 creation. An expressionist colour is present in recent works: COUP DE GRÂCE (2019), or the solo response to the health crisis, L'Ingénue sorcière (2020).
The opening of the Studio/Kelemenis in 1999 marked a new stage of commitment to the development of the art of dance in the Phocaean metropolis. The choreographer founded the Question de danse creation festival in 2006. The dynamic of sharing space, first complementary, then additional and indispensable, makes the need for a complete dedicated facility viable and audible.
In October 2011, on his initiative and following Michel Kelemenis' programme, KLAP Maison pour la danse in Marseille, a new 2,000 square metre facility dedicated to the art of dance and its permanent visibility, was inaugurated. Immediately, KLAP amplified Kelemenis&cie's fundamental actions around the beating heart of creation: support for authors and companies, educational artistic sharing, access to professions, cooperation and choreographic culture. The choreographer initiated the festivAnges festival - dance for children and young people in 2014, and the + DE GENRES festival in 2018. The programme Une Saison de danse à Marseille presents more than sixty companies each year, between the region and Europe.
In 2017 Kelemenis&cie celebrates 30 years of creation, and in 2021 the 10th anniversary of KLAP Maison pour la danse, which the choreographer has directed since its opening.
Pedagogical objectives of the module
To discover the motivations and challenges of creation for young audiences by this choreographer: when and how the question of creation for young audiences was formulated to the point of making the choreographer enter into the process of an object specifically designed for this field
To understand the poetic territories that choreography for young audiences makes it possible to approach that the general public would not allow
Understand the dynamics of a choreography specifically designed for young audiences: which dancing bodies, which movement parameters, which relationship to the music?
Module 3 - 21 - 22 January 2023
Saturday 21 January 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm
Sunday 22 January 9.30am-1.30pm and 2pm-3.30pm
PNSD Rosella Hightower Studios
Trainer: Christophe Garcia
Show to see: From 18 to 21 January 2023, A l'orée (from 3 months), Stéphanie Moitrel and Céline Dauvergne, in day care centres and at the Théâtre de la Licorne
"I like dance to venture everywhere, and above all, not to stay in its place.
Christophe Garcia grew up in Haute-Savoie in a modest environment where a career in dance was not an obvious choice. According to family legend, as soon as he was old enough to stand on two legs, he never stopped dancing, and then making others dance. Attentive to this thirst for expression, his mother enrolled him in a drama class and then in the Annecy Conservatory of Dance.
In 1996, he joined the highly selective Ecole Atelier Rudra Béjart. These two years of multidisciplinary training with Maurice Béjart were a real revelation for him. The practice of theatre, music and martial arts enriched his repertoire and he blossomed fully in this climate of permanent artistic effervescence. In 1998, he was lucky enough to be hired by the master and joined the Béjart Ballet Lausanne. This marked the beginning of a life of companies and international tours. After Maurice Béjart, Christophe Garcia worked under the direction of illustrious directors such as Robert Wilson and Robert Lepage.
While questioning his future, he began writing a solo Alice. It was there that he discovered the incredible pleasure of choreographing and rediscovered the inventiveness of his youth. Making people dance is his joy. In 2000, Maurice Béjart encouraged him in this direction by giving him carte blanche. At the age of 19, he created his own company, La Parenthèse, because it is a space wide open to all kinds of freedom...
For twenty years, La parenthèse has travelled the world, exploring the infinite possibilities of dance and winning several international prizes in the process. Christophe's musical skills have enabled him to collaborate with major musical ensembles such as Les Arts Florissants and the Orchestre National des Pays-de-la-Loire. Regularly setting out to conquer new audiences and spaces that are not dedicated to him, his creations are deployed on marble monuments, museums, country halls, arenas or in the hushed alcoves of hotel rooms. Most of the projects are designed according to the spaces in which they are performed. Because Bringing dance out of theatres allows the spectator to appropriate the performance, to discover an unprecedented closeness, to share with the dancers smells, warmth and a form of intimacy. Intimacy, the search for love, desire and sensuality are precisely at the heart of his latest creations: L'ambition d'être tendre, Niebo hôtel, Le problème avec le rose, and the upcoming Les Nuits d'été. As a lover of theatre, music and literature, Christophe Garcia likes to invite words and live music on stage; inhabiting the text without illustrating it is part of the challenge. His next creation, Les nuits d'été, is at the crossroads of these paths.
Pedagogical objectives of the module
To discover the motivations and challenges of creation for young audiences by this choreographer: when and how the question of creation for young audiences was formulated to the point of making the choreographer enter into the process of an object specifically designed for this field
To understand the challenges of the dialogue between the different media and artistic disciplines involved in creation: dance, text, set design, music
Understand the dynamics of a choreography that calls on the text, why and how
Module 4 - 11 and 12 February 2023
Saturday 11 February 10am-1pm and 2pm-5pm
Sunday 12 February 9.30am-1.30pm and 2pm-3.30pm
PNSD Rosella Hightower Studios
Trainer: Christophe Garcia
Show to see : To be defined according to the programming of the venues in the Cannes area
Educational objectives of the module: creative laboratory
To test in the studio an intention for a piece for young audiences
Gather feedback and input from other trainees and professionals
To be able to develop one's practice
Module 4 will conclude with a pedagogical assessment with the trainees.
Materials provided to trainees:
Texts, props, materials.
End-of-course evaluation:
Intermediate evaluations at the end of each module.
Educational assessment on the last day with all the participants and the teachers. Collective oral evaluation of approximately 2 hours to assess whether the trainees' objectives have been achieved, whether the working methods used were satisfactory and whether the working conditions were adequate. Anonymous evaluation form to be returned at the end of the course. Follow-up sheet
Cost of the course = 930€
The PNSD Rosella Hightower is open to any specific request in case of disability, in order to facilitate your participation in our training courses. Contact the disability advisor
For more information, please contact Mrs Amélie Clisson: amelie.clisson@pnsd.fr