ANOUK LLAURENS

BIO

Anouk Llaurens is an independent dance artist and shiatsu practitioner based in Brussels. She performs, create works, make research and share her interests through workshops. These specific yet connected practices proposes various framework for de-learning and questioning knowledge through experience.

Influential figures that supported the definition of her artistic vision and practice are Fernand Schirren (assistant in P.A.R.T.S between 1995 and 1999), Deborah Hay (Room 1995), Steve Paxton and particularly Lisa Nelson.

Since 2013, Anouk leads Visions, a research on poetic dance documentation. The project, supported by Contredanse and Bains Connective in Brussels, presents the interdependency between the tactile and the visual world.
Anouk collaborates with visual artist and choreographer Julien Bruneau on “phréatiques” since 2010. The project explores the intersection between dance, drawing and verbal thinking. It generates performances, exhibitions and “Strata”, an internet publication on Oral Site, Sarma Brussels 2014. http://sarma.be/oralsite/pages/Strata/. (Amsterdam Master of Choreography 2014, Netwerk center for contemporary art 2012, Working Title Platform, Brussels 2011 Institut Supérieur pour l’étude du Langage Plastique, Brussels 2013, Twilight Zone Gallery, 2011)

Anouk graduated from the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine d’Angers in 1992 and collaborated with Michèle Anne De Mey (Sonatas 555, Pulcinnella), Barbara Manzetti (Transport public), Tony Thatcher (Scape), Els van Riel and Julia Eckhart (Lost and found, QO2) or Jim Denley (Helium). Bains Connective, Charleroi Danses and Contredanse in Brussels have supported her work. She teaches at the Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival, Contredanse, Charleroi danse, CDC Toulouse and for the Candoco Dance Company. She mentors for a-pass and is an active member of the project IDOCDE (International Documentation Of Contemporary Dance Education).

FRAME OF RESEARCH

Visions
with Anouk Llaurens, Sonia Si Ahmed and Grégoire Vigneron.

Visions is a research on poetic dance documentation led by Anouk Llaurens and guests. Its aim is to create a multi-modal and polyphonic documentation that combines sensorial exploration, performance, image, drawing, text, film and audio to present the interdependency between the tactile and the visual world. The object of the documentation is ‘hand-eye coordination’ which is the coordination between the hand and the eye necessary to execute simple task like taking a glass to drink it, opening a door, putting on a coat, writing or drawing. Vision is also a mean to reflect upon documentation itself: what is dance documentation? What effects does it have upon its subject? What if dance artists apply their perceptual, motor, mental and composition skills to document their own practice?

During this third residency in Bain Connective, we will oscillate between physical explorations that address hand-eye coordination and the creation of the prototype of a ‘handbook to make and unmake’ at the crossroad between crumpled ball of paper and origami. The book will be made of A4 pages imprinted with texts, pictures, and drawings produced in previous residencies. We wish this ‘handbook’ to act as an interface between ‘the artists’ and ‘ the readers’, engaging both sides in a manual as well as intellectual experience.