© Anne Holst
Artist statement
I have a strong interest in immersing myself inside of a given territory, a village, a town, a city, an historical site, its surroundings, etc., to gather as much information as possible about how people live in it, discovering their diversity, approaching their complexities, finally trying to understand the way they belong to their society. The idea then is to go from that fulfilling reality towards the imagining of a possible fiction, which will then translate into a participatory work of art.
Since my work deals with the questioning about how daily digital technology affects our lives, and to what extend it transforms us, somehow reducing our bodily capacities, by orienting our ways of thinking and making us unable to clearly see the choices we can make and the decisions we can take, I am interested in confronting citizen’s behaviors and embodiments within their urban and natural environment with their technologically mediated daily activities including living, educating their children, entertaining themselves, creating with their imaginary, etc. What I thrive the most is the quest for human agency, i. e. our capacity to freely act upon the world.
Another area of deep interest, and intellectual pleasure, deals with the encountering of other cultures. This represents what I call a strong taste for cultural exchange as much as developing a culture of exchanges. This has led me and the company members to imagine, conceive and realize many projects abroad and overseas, containing co-creations, collaborative workshops, active involvement in two European funded projects and two Euroregional projects (Occitania, Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Aragon), deep sharing of knowledge and expertise (artistic choreographic compositional tools, digital opensource software, etc.), immersion with population and local artists.
Dancer, choreographer, and artistic director. Trained at the Cunningham Studio in New-York, he has performed with David Gordon (Judson Church), and then founded K. Dance, company involved in numerous creative projects mixing contemporary dance and digital arts. He is interested in the impact of digital technology on society, to develop a meaningful relationship between dance and new media. He has choreographed more than 48 pieces, which have been presented extensively in France (Avignon Festival, the Pompidou Center, etc.) and in many countries (Europe, Central and South America, USA, Canada, North Africa, India, Pakistan).
Since 1983, K. Danse has been present in major festivals and cultural events in France and abroad. Laureate of the call for proposals with the “Dis-TDance” Euroregional (Occitania, Catalonia, Balearic Islands) project, 2021. Laureate of the call for proposals “Cultures Connectées” with the “ANDS” (Dance, Digital Arts, Social inclusion) project Angoulême, with the support of the Nouvelle Aquitaine Drac and Regional Council, 2022-2023. Recipient of the “projet Phare 2017” grant from la Diagonale Paris-Saclay with the RCO project. Recipient of the Residency Fellowship (for Dance) from the Bogliasco Foundation 2017 (Genoa Italy, New-York).
His choreographic approach develops a contemporary movement language by the dialectic confrontation between the physical body (lived, experienced) and the visual body (seen, virtual).