Cécile Proust

Cécile Proust is a choreographer-artist, pedagogue and director of the Femmeuses programme.

She trained in classical and contemporary fields. At the same time as pursuing her dancing career with contemporary choreographers, including Josette Baïz, Odile Duboc, Alain Buffard, Dominique Brun, Daniel Larrieu, Thierry Thieu Niang, Bob Wilson, the Albrecht Knust Quartet, she chose to travel to discover and to practice dances like flamenco in Spain, kathak in Northern India, oriental dance in Egypt and Jiuta Mai (traditional Geisha dance) in Kyoto. Cécile Proust combines these traditional dances, some of which are practiced exclusively by women, with Western contemporary dances, anthropological and social notions as well as critical supports, so that figures created by bodies and dances, the illusions of genders and sexed roles may be questioned.

Since 1991, Cécile Proust has choreographed a myriad of works related to these questions, which are performed in France and around the world. She works with theatres, operas, the cinema, as well as the contemporary art and musical spheres.

In 2004, Cécile Proust decided to create Femmeuses. This artistic and anthropological project questions the role of women in the world and in art. 27 Femmeuses actions were developed in a variety of forms: shows, conferences, performances, videos, documentary choreographies, interviews, installations, entertainment programmes, exhibition curatorship, educational programmes.

In 2005, Cécile Proust won the Hors les murs (Outside the Walls) programme award to pursue an artist in residence programme in the United States.

Cécile Proust graduated from SciencesPo, Paris with a Masters Degree in Art and Politics from the Bruno Latour-initiated SPEAP programme (multidisciplinary programme for scientific, artistic and pedagogical experimentation).