THOMAS HAUERT

Having worked as a dancer with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, David Zambrano and Pierre Droulers, Thomas Hauert, originally from Switzerland, founded his company ZOO in Brussels in 1998. Cows in Space, his first piece was immediately awarded at the Rencontres de Seine-Saint-Denis/Bagnolet. The company has since created more than 20 works, which have been performed all over the world. In addition to his work for ZOO, Thomas Hauert was also commissioned to create work for other companies including the Zurich Ballet, Toronto Dance Theatre, Candoco Dance Company and Ballet de Lorraine. Complementing his choreographic work, Thomas Hauert has developed an internationally recognized teaching method based on the movement research conducted with his company. He has an ongoing collaboration with P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels and regularly teaches workshops worldwide. In 2012 -13, he was a guest professor for dance and performance at the Institute for Theater Studies of the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2012, Thomas Hauert was invited to participate in the “Motion Bank” project initiated by the Forsythe Company to stimulate research on choreographic practice and thought. In 2013 Hauert has been appointed artistic director of the new bachelor degree in contemporary dance at the Manufacture, University of Performing Arts in Lausanne in Switzerland. Thomas Hauert is “artiste en compagnonnage” at Théâtre de Liège and in residency at Théâtre Les Tanneurs in Brussels.

Improvisation

Every joint of our body has its range of movement and there are countless combinations possible. The body possesses a great practical knowledge, that goes way beyond what the mind’s consciousness is able to process, about its anatomy and its mechanics, their actions and reactions, and their interactions with external forces (gravity, centrifugal- and centripetal force, another body etc.).
In a progressive series of improvisational tasks with one or more partners, exchanging information sensorially, in touch or at a distance, we will take advantage of this phenomenon to create forms, rhythms, movement qualities and trajectories far more sophisticated than the ones our conscious mind could invent. We will be guided away from our habitual tracks, patterns will be distorted or overridden.

While in the first part of the day we will practise to multiply and disconnect actions within our own individual body to create a sense of polyphony within it, we will, in a second chapter of the day, improvise the composition of the movement of a group, in the attempt to create one single organism out of a group of individual bodies.