Dominique Brun

Performer and choreographer, Dominique Brun co-founded the company La Salamandre (1980 to 1988). Together they came third at the international competition of Bagnolet (1981), “Le Ballet pour demain”. She also co-founded Quatuor Albrecht Knust (1994 to 2003), with whom she worked on recreating dances from the historical repertoire from scores established in Labanotation. After Quatuor Albrecht Knust dissolved, Dominique Brun created Siléo (2004) from a text by Wajdi Mouawad and dances from the interwar period by Valeska Gert, Kurt Jooss, Dore Hoyer, Doris Humphrey, Mary Wigman.

In 2007, Dominique Brun produced a pedagogical DVD dedicated to L’Après-midi d’un faune [The Afternoon of a Faun] (1912) by Naslav Nijinsky. On Jan Kounen’s invitation, she refashioned extracts of Sacre du printemps [The Rite of Spring] (1913; Nijinsky), from the period’s archives, for the film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravnisky (2010).

Supported by L’Association du 48, directed by the dancer and choreographer Sylvain Prunenec, she extended her research on the Sacre through a diptych: Sacre #197 (2012) and Sacre #2 (2014). She concluded this cycle of work dedicated to Nijinsky with the creation of Jeux – Trois études pour sept petits paysages aveugles (2017). Next came Les Perles ne font pas le collier, a piece she co-signed and danced with Sylvain Prunenec (2018). Most recently, she has created Le Poids des choses & Peter and the Wolf (2019), her first performance choreographed for children as well as adults, basing it on Rudolf Laban’s Effort system.

In parallel to her research on movement, Dominique Brun has developed a distinct artistic taste for the relationship between music and dance. In 2016, the meeting with the orchestra Les Siècles (under the direction of François-Xavier Roth) led to the Philharmonie de Paris and Les porteurs d’ombre sharing a stage for the Hommage à Nijinski project, which toured as far as China.

Dominique Brun is in 2020 working on two major works by Bronislava Nijinska. Her rereading of Les Noces and Un Bolero led her to a choreographic, dramaturgical, and musical interpretation. The future of Les Noces and Un Bolero lies between tradition and interpretation; between written works and choreographic invention; in the metamorphosis and dance.